Las Vegas Cool Hand

"This game is so cool, you'll be burning up the slots in Las Vegas..."

''500 dollars! What am I going to do with 500 dollars?'' *Bart dreams of himself in a casino* ''I'd like 500 dollars on red.'' *Ball spins around roulette table…* ''And it lands on, 36 black.'' ''Cool!'' Although you can't play roulette in this game like Bart did, you can waste virtual dollars as much as you want like him. The three different games you can play are solitaire, cribbage, and blackjack, all of which are very entertaining.

The first mode, blackjack, is exactly what you think it is. First of all, you start off with $50. For each hand, you can chose to bet up to $10, in $2 intervals. Then, both hands are dealt. You have the usual choices, and if you don't know how to play blackjack there is a help file along with the game, that is very in-depth. Actually, there are help files for each of the three games. You'll have good and bad streaks in this game, like sometimes you'll think you're such a great player, and then suddenly you lose five hands in a row and bring yourself back down to the $50 level. When you play a hand, the game will automatically deduct your bet from your ''bank'' before the hand starts. Then, if you win you receive twice the money back. After winning $150 dollars, a sign will pop up saying you've passed this table. You'll now have the option to raise the stakes, with a maximum betting amount of $100. Unfortunately, losing all your money will cause this mode to be locked again, and you'll have to start out at a maximum of $10 bets again. It is really discouraging when this happens, and odds are you won't want to work up back to this level again. One funny little thing that the game does, is every once and a while a little sign pops up saying, ''Shuffling''. You must wait a bit for a few seconds as it shuffles.

Another neat feature with the Blackjack mode is a count option. While your playing, you can open this menu and tons of equations are presented to you. Each card is assigned a value in normal mode, and then an overall count can be positive or negative, giving an indication of what the odds are you will get the card you want. However, you can also click expert mode, and that gives further odds displayed in fractions for each card in the entire deck. Although you won't be checking this each hand to see what your odds are, it's nice knowing they took the time to add something as in-depth as this.

The solitaire game has to be the most disappointing out of the three, even though it is still alright. There are actually a few different modes, but the most common type of solitaire is especially disappointing. The cards are extremely squished, and I found myself straining my eyes just to see what card number and suit it was. Other then that, it's your traditional game. There could have been a hundred better ways to lay it out, and they had to pick the worst. But solitaire is solitaire, and if you like it then you'll be sure to enjoy this rendition. Everything plays the exact same, and a lot of different options are customizable.

One other mode, called Calculation, is mostly just another card game, not really a version of solitaire. On the left side, there are four cards from top to bottom: Ace, two, three, and four. These cards also represent what the following cards will have to be. In the ace row, the next card needs to be a two, then three, etc. In the row starting with the two, the next card has to be a four, then six, etc. In case you haven't caught on yet, the row with the three has to be followed by a six, then nine, etc., and this pattern is also used for the fourth row. A deck of forty-eight cards is on the top-left, with four blank spaces underneath the deck. Firstly, you pick up a card from the deck, and see if it can be placed in any of the four piles. If it can't, you can set it in one of the blank spaces. Once the four blank spaces are filled, you can still place cards on top of the other ones. The only problem is these can be covering other cards you may need, and you'll only be allowed to take a card off of a pile if you can place it in one of the four main piles. It's a fairly ingenious game, add just adds some more to the replayability.

The sound is decent, with music accompanying the gameplay. You also have a convenient option to turn the sound off, on the main menu. There aren't many sound effects during the game, and the music stays the same all the time. As with most games for the Gameboy, I generally keep the sound off to conserve battery power.

The last mode, cribbage, was completely foreign to me. I've never taken the time to learn it, it just sounded too confusing with all the numbers. Now however, I've become a cribbage pro and am a big fan of the game. The main reason was excellent in-game help was provided. Your guided step-by-step through every move, and they explain everything. Once this help gets annoying, you can change the level of help to competent or expert. They will even suggest which cards to play, if you don't know yourself.

Las Vegas Cool Hand is a great attempt at a party game, for the Gameboy. A few more mini-games would have been nice, but the ones here now are still great. This is one of those games you can easily pick up and play for a bit, then put it away for a while. The replay factor never gets old, and you will keep coming back to try and set new records for yourself. If you're in need of a portable party game, get this.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/27/02, Updated 05/27/02