GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/26/2001
- Updated on: 05/17/2006
- Released on: 07/14/2001
- Originally published on GameSpot: Monopoly Casino: Vegas Edition (PC) Review
Like 1999's Monopoly Casino, Monopoly Casino Vegas Edition attempts to bring the allure of the casino to the PC. For this year's edition, developer/publisher Infogrames has thankfully toned down the seemingly nonsensical Monopoly connection, added several new variations of casino games, and generally spruced up the presentation to make things look and sound less cartoonlike. Nonetheless, the series remains a lackluster substitute for the real thing and therefore is recommended only to the seriously addicted or those who want to learn the rules of certain games before their next trip to the desert.
You choose from a variety of casino games from this screen.
It's not that this iteration of Monopoly Casino is a bad game. In fact, it effectively translates the workings of virtually every popular casino game in existence--and then some. The coin-popping crowd will satiate its urges through no less than three progressive jackpot slot machines, three more animated video slot machines, six standard slots, four progressive jackpot video poker machines, and a half-dozen standard video poker machines. Table fanatics can head on over to the roulette wheel, the black jack or craps tables, the more complex pai gow poker and sic bo stations, or any one of six variations of poker. Of course, no self-respecting casino would be complete without a glowing keno board or spinning money wheel, and Monopoly Casino obliges on both these counts as well. The old church favorite, bingo, rounds out what is a truly impressive array of games.
Yet, Monopoly Casino goes much further than that. If you don't like the rules and regulations as they're handed out, you need only move and click the mouse a few times to change them. You may opt to begin with a $1,000, $5,000 or $10,000 limit. You may opt to increase or reduce table and machine limits or the number of participating players, or you can modify a battery of betting options. In the end, you'll find most every gameplay variant available to a real player. But in spite of all this, you won't find the most important ingredient of all--the thrills and spills of a true Vegas experience.
To begin with, the game offers no multiplayer support and therefore lacks the excitement that comes only from playing with and against real people. Apparently, the Internet multiplayer element of the original game simply wasn't popular enough to warrant another go, although why Infogrames couldn't build a head-to-head single-computer option remains a mystery. Furthermore, none of the virtual competitors have a face or voice and are instead represented merely by Monopoly tokens. Certainly, some of the dynamics that come from trouncing your poker-playing peer are lost when that peer is nothing but a tiny race car or thimble. By comparison, Microsoft Casino didn't support multiplayer gaming either, but at least it had the common decency to put an animated head and voice to each of its virtual players.
What's rather more problematic is the simple fact that Monopoly Casino--or any PC casino game, for that matter--doesn't give players the opportunity to win and lose real money. Few would argue that the most obvious allure of most casino games is the potentially big payoff that lies at the end and the very real hoops you have to negotiate to get there, but you won't get any of that in a computerized depiction. The hard truth is that games of pure chance, such as slot machines, video poker, roulette, and keno, can become horribly dull very quickly when the entry fees and rewards are merely imagined. Games that require more skill, like poker, do offer more substance and therefore are more interesting, particularly if you've previously been too shy or too uninformed to step up to a table in real life. But even then, the very digital nature of your opponents and Infogrames' generally uninspired presentation hamper any potential excitement.
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