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Review: Monopoly CasinoReviewed By: Bill Stiteler Review Date: April 26, 2001
I've yet to find a casino game that didn't make me miserable. The original Leisure Suit Larry game was a decent blackjack simulator (or was it poker?), but it was half the game (you needed a large sum of money to "solve" one of the puzzles), and completely unavoidable unless you wanted to play slots, which would take even longer. Also, it had something to do with getting laid. Getting laid in eight-bit resolution, mind you, but still. Thus is the genius of Al Lowe that he can turn such a hindrance around with a crudely-rendered carrot. To put the matter bluntly, casino games are for morons who think they're going to figure out a way to beat the house (you aren't), or don't have enough friends to get together for a friendly game of poker. In case you haven't guessed by now, I hate casino games. The only genre I hate more is flight simulators, but that's because of my utter incompetence in playing them. Hiner once gave me Red Baron to try out. After about eight hours I was pleased to find out that I had finally managed to work out level flight. This was because I was still on the ground.
When the Sega Dreamcast first came out, I went out with my friend Dale so he could reserve a light gun or some such accessory that hadn't come out yet. What they did have was the fishing reel controller, which cracked me up no end. The guy at the counter chuckled and assured me that the fishing game was pretty fun, and the controller helped. "If it accurately simulates the experience of fishing," said I, "that's just one more reason for me to not buy it." Same here. If you've never been to Vegas, Atlantic City, or one of the Native American casinos and think it might be a vision of hookers that look like Elizabeth Shue or Nick Cage drinking himself to death (both pleasant images), forget it. Your typical casino is more like a nursing home, only instead of smelling like antiseptic it's filled with cigarette smoke as the elderly lose their food money, one nickle at a time. It's the most depressing thing in the world, unless you're drunk. Most casinos provide free drinks to gamblers.
I installed the game on my 9600/350, the same machine I use to play Unreal Tournament, Elite Force, et al. The game installed just fine, but when I tried to actually play the damn thing, I got a dialog box telling me that "Monopoly Casino requires a G3 or better processor to run." Allow me to quote directly from the box that Monopoly Casino came in: "SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS, MINIMUM: Any Macintosh PowerPC 180 MHz or faster..." Paging Quality Assurance... Mr. Monopoly, the cheery little capitalist, is your guide through the world of casino gambling. A world which you cannot win. Get that into your head right now. The odds are always in the house's favor. Anyway, you have several different ways to lose your money. I'll break it down for you. Slots: There are variations on the game, different names, different pictures. But in the end, it's just you pulling the lever and a machine telling you if you've won. Even lab rats have it better than this: at least they learn which button gives them the pellet after a while. Reason to play slots in real life: requires no thought, lengthy games a good way to pass the time in your declining years. Reason to play slots on a computer: Pretty colors. Craps: The manual (a printed manual) tries to explain the rules for craps. Good luck. I have a college education in communication and after three readings I still couldn't figure out what the hell I was betting on. So you roll the dice and the computer tells you if you've won. Which makes it slots. Most of you will remember craps as the game that Klinger on TVs M*A*S*H was always playing, usually so Father Mulcahey could buy a roof for the orphans. My memory tells me the two of them bought about three roofs for that orphanage. Real life reason to play craps: less dorky version of Dungeons and Dragons. Reason to play craps on a computer: Feel stupid playing slots; virtual orphans need roof.
Regular and Monopoly variety. Pick a number, the computer tells you if you've won. Lord, can't someone come up with a piece of freeware that randomly flashed "Win" or "Lose" on the screen? Real life reason to play roulette: James Bond fantasy. Reason to play roulette on a computer: Can't get "Viva Las Vegas" out of your head. Keno: Keno is the lottery. You pick your numbers, the computer picks the winning numbers. Net result: you lose. Real life reason to play Keno: Sit your butt down and drink. Cute Keno girls take your numbers. Reason to play Keno on a computer: Mouse broken. Poker and Blackjack:
As a simulator, Monopoly Casino does its job; you can gamble without losing (or winning) anything except the thirty bucks you used to buy it. I guess you might want to buy it to practice your gambling system. Some words of advice about systems, tho'; they will either fail, or if you succeed someone will hurt you very, very much. Monopoly Casino has good graphics, but good graphics aren't enough anymore. Good graphics are now a requisite, and so, apparently, is a G3 processor, no matter what the speed. My Uncle Chris gave me the greatest lesson about poker I've ever received; you can't bluff when you're not playing for money. Strategy games and even FPSs manage to test your problem-solving skills without resorting to the random number generator that is a gambling game. Without some kind of reward structure, a game just doesn't make sense. This is why, say, Myst is a failure in my book, and Al Lowe is one of the greatest game designers ever.
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So here is Monopoly Casino, which through no fault of its own, nor that of the programmers nor the truly wonderful people at MacSoft, is going to suck. If you're waiting for a Stitelerian reversal here, stop. I hated this game.
So here's this casino game, which is based on Monopoly. Why? Apparently there are Monopoly slot machines now, or rather, slot machines that use Monopoly icons. The premise being that people who think they're good at Monopoly will think they have a better chance with that slot machine. I'll get to those in a second. First off, installation.
Roulette:
Okay, here we go. Here, I was ready to cut them some slack. Because for whatever reason, I love to play poker and blackjack, even though I suck at them both. Kind of like chess, I just get a charge out of playing them. Monopoly casino even gives you a variety of poker games: Hi-lo, stud, draw, Pai Gow and the like. And the highest compliment I can give them is that they're okay. Because there's no tension. You're playing both games not just against the house but against other computer players, which makes card counting well-nigh impossible, but there's no socializing. You can't try to figure out the personality of the other players, you can't work on your poker face. It's all just math to the machine.