"Free things have never been so much fun!"

OPENING STATEMENT
Solitaire is one of the best known and most fun card games in the world, and this Windows version does it justice. The game is perfect for those times when you are dying of boredom, and are too lazy to get out the deck of cards, mix them up, and deal them.

GAMEPLAY--9
Gameplay is a breeze. All you need to do is click and drag a card, and release it over where you want it to go. There are not any major problems here. One minor problem, is that if you release the card over the wrong place, you need to click and drag it again.

GRAPHICS--7
How on earth can I rate graphics in a card game? The colors are all bright and vibrant. The drawings of the face cards are clear and well drawn. The cards are shaped nicely. The green background makes all of the cards show up easily. The cards also look just like those eighty-nine cent poker card decks that you find in the checkout aisles at Target. They are just typical cards.

MUSIC--N/A
SOUND--N/A
As with all of the games included with Windows, there is no sound. Perhaps this is because otherwise you would not be able to play the games while you are supposed to be working on your English Class essay on Edgar Allen Poe's use of paragraphs, without getting caught. Not that I am endorsing using this at that time. I'm sure Edgar Allen Poe used paragraphs very efficiently. Or perhaps there is no sound because the game is free!

CONTROL--9
If you have a problem with the control in Solitaire, your mouse must have trackball issues. All you do is click and drag, click and drag. Nothing much to control, but it all controls smoothly. Basically, it is easier to control than Hearts, because there is not so much dragging everywhere.

FUN--10
If you want mindless fun, look elsewhere. Solitaire involves concentration and strategy. You need to look carefully to see if there is anyway to put that red seven on the black eight. And there is no place to put those four cards that are in the way like in Free Cell. You need to think. In some of the newer versions of Solitaire you can change the number of cards that are drawn each time from three to one. This makes the game a lot easier to win. On three card draw, the game can get sometimes frustrating because you never win. One one card draw, you almost always win. And on some older versions of Solitaire, the game includes a 'Hint' button, that will tell you where the top card from the pile can go, if anywhere. So the game can be made easier in most versions, on way or another.

CHALLENGE--MEDIUM
Solitaire is very hard to rate in the Challenge section. The challenge all depends on your being able to watch out for numbers and colors at the same time. If you are bad at the real Solitaire card game, do not expect to get magically better here. Unless you use on of the ways to make it easier from the 'Fun' section.

REPLAY VALUE--HIGH
As I said before, you will be playing this game constantly, whether you mean to or not. It is that addicting. There is no limit to how much you will play this. There is only a limit to how much free time you have.

PROS
*It is free!
*One of the most beloved card games ever is on your PC.
*Amazingly high replay value keeps you playing and playing.

CONS
*There is no sound or music whatsoever.
*You may completely lose track of time and miss important things.
*Solitaire is not very complex; It is a card game after all.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Solitaire is one of those games that you will find yourself playing even if you did not mean to. It can catch you and make you late for dentist appointments, airplane flights, and baseball games. But, this just means that Solitaire on the computer is a game you will always have, even if you did not mean to. It's not a very good excuse to tell your coach though!

OVERALL--9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/01, Updated 07/18/01