From: howard@sinoda.ultra.COM (Howard Simonson)
Subject: Review of LYNX Casino (part2)
Reply-To: howard@ultra.com
Organization: Ultra Network Technologies
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 00:25:55 GMT

At last, I had a chance to collect the various rules on the Blackjack portion
of the LYNX Casino game.  But first, let me update my previous review on the
craps game with the fact that you can't lay odds on a don't pass bet!  Geez,
I raise my recommendation to don't bother buying this game for craps at all!

Anyway, lets talk BJ.  Here's a quick rundown and I'll avoid the standard
rec.gambling acronyms for the benefit of the rec.games.video crowd that may
not be "up on the lingo":

Blackjack:

Six decks.  Doubling after splitting a pair is allowed, resplitting is not.
Doubling is allowed on any two cards, except player BJ is payed immediately,
unless dealer has an Ace up, in which case, player is allowed to insure AND
DOUBLE!?  Even money is not an option, but taking insurance makes it work
out that way since dealer/player BJ is a push.  I haven't tried doubling
in that situation to see what happens.  I'd expect "the right thing" but
after the way the craps game is programmed, anything is possible. :(

When insurance is chosen, a little red "I" icon is placed near your hand
and half the bet you have out is subtracted from your total.  Its a simple
menu choice, so obviously you can't insure for less (than half).  Of course
who would want to anyway (any rec.gamblers care to comment?).

There is no "peeking" after the insurance bet is chosen (kinda can't, its
on the menu with all the other choices like hit and stand), so you can
split and double away, and as should happen, dealer BJ only takes your
original bet.

The penetration is about 60%, and when hit, it stops, says "Shuffling...",
and makes little shuffling noises for a few seconds (ain't that cute :).

With ComLYNXing, two players can sit and play at the table, or one player
can play both hands.  The interface isn't great for one player/two hands,
you have to move the little hand and go through the bet dialog, the whole
bet dialog thing is pretty slow, in either craps or BJ, and the resolve of
hands in BJ seems to have some built in drag time, ITS JUST A BIT SLOW.

So, the game is pretty much Atlantic City BJ.  Ughh.  I wish you could
choose the number of decks to use, how hard could that be???  But at
least its stable enough to practice basic strategy and maybe counting
on, and keep from getting too rusty between trips to Reno.

Oh, I almost forgot, almost all the games have a "statistics" feature.
When you press "Option 1", you get a display showing initial & current
bankroll, win/loss/push for regular/splits/doubles, BJs, ins. win/loss,
avg. bet/return & number of hands played.

Roulette:

A quick jaunt to the roulette table and the first dialog asks you what value
your chips should take on ($1,$2,$5,$10,$25).  I guess you can't just throw
down a few bucks on red :).  So you "buy" in with your bankroll, and now,
the good old hand cursor is there to roll about the layout and place chips.
Hitting "A" will drop a chip, continued  hitting of "A" will cause a digit
to appear on the chip indicating how many are in stack you're making (stacks
are limited to 31 chips, viva la binary :).  Beyond 9 chips, a "+" is
displayed on the chip/stack.  Regardless of how many chips are stacked on a
bet, pressing "B" will remove the all from that bet.

The roulette game is impressive in that the game supports all the bets I've
ever seen and read about, by betting on the appropriate lines and such.
After all the bets have been placed, you move the "hand" down to a big spin
button at the bottom of the layout and press "A".  A little graphic with an
end-on view of a spinning wheel, some smiling corporate looking dude
(probably has stock in the casino:), and a Hot Babe(tm) are staring at you
as the ball and wheel spin and a number is chosen.  The layout returns, all
the losing bets do a dissolve, the winning number has a marquee around it,
and if you've been lucky (or covered the layout), a dialog zooms up to tell
you how much you won.

Now a nice aspect is, once all that stuff above is through, a dialog pops
up asking if you want to make the same bets again.  If you've ever watched
die-hard roulette players play, you know that this dialog has its basis
in reality.  Saying yes will replay all the bets and amounts you did on
the last spin.  Then you have the chance to add some and take some away
before you "hit" the spin button.

By hitting the "Option 1" button, you can get stats on number frequency,
initial and current bankroll, avg. bet/return, and number of spins.

Bottom line, not bad, here's where the programmer must have really spent
his time, which of course, doesn't say much for the intelligence of the
programmer.  In each of these games, it seems like exiting back to the
casino floor should have been a joypad/virtual-button-press operation
like spin, freeing up another button to make the interface to the games
easier.  Just MHO.

Slots: (One dollar)

At last, the easy stuff.  Pressing "A" tosses a buck into the air where it
spins and magically homes in on and drops into the slot machine.  At the
same time, the payout schedule zooms up (I won't bore anyone with the
payout sched., does it really matter) showing vaious fruit winning piddly
amounts, and the big win, $5000, on triple "7"s.  Repeated pressing of "A"
tosses more coins in, for a max of 5 coins.  The payouts are all one coin
pays; tossing in more coins gives you more lines (three horiz. and diags.).
If you press "B" before inserting all five coins, the handle is "pulled",
however it will "auto-pull" when the fifth coin drops in.

When you win, coins pile up at the bottom, bells whir, lights flash, ding,
ding, ding, and a dialog zooms up to tell you what you won.  OK, no way
I'm gonna calculate the "hold" on this baby, you want that info, buy the
game, map the wheels, and go figure it out :).  Stats are available to
tell you averages, pulls, and wins by direction.

The bottom line, its totally mindless and brainless, what else would
slots be, but sometimes you need to veg. and this fits the bill.  I hafta
admit, I'm looking forward to hitting triple "7"s someday to see what happens.

Video Poker: (One dollar)

Same interface as the slots with the flying coins bit, and stats will tell
you the regular stuff, total hands and distributions of winning hands.
The payouts are linear to coin drop, no big kicker for betting five.

Here are the pays:

2 pair:         1          3 of a kind: 2
Straight:       4          Flush:       5
Full House:     8          4 of a kind: 16
Straight Flush: 100        5 of a kind: 400

You might say, five of a kind!, what kinda game is this?  Well, yes, its got
a joker.  I suppose only one, I've never seen two come up.  On a win, when
royalty or a joker is present, the characters will turn their heads and
laugh at you.  Kinda grotesque actually, given the resolution.  Perhaps some
wizbang rec.gambler w/calculator can tell us what the hold is on this puppy.

Bottom line: Its an OK game, maybe the best/easiet interface of any of
them, and while I might not play it a lot, the wife likes VP so I can
always say I bought the cartridge for her :).

THE BOTTOM LINE:  LYNX Casino could have been MUCH better, but its
passable, if you toss out any serious craps play.  The interfaces could
be improved, and more flexibilty in setup (of, say, BJ) would be obvious
improvements, however, as it stands, its fun enough to while away some
time with, practice your games, convince yourself how bad some of them
really are, and brush up on your money management skills (probably never
happen since it tends to take real money to make you feel like you're
playing with real money).  As a two player, going head-to-head, it could
be more enjoyable since you can ignore how poorly the games were done,and
just concentrate on "beating the other guy".

I should mention that my LYNX has had some allergic reactions to this
particular cartridge.  I've had to return the first one I bought and get
another since it would just come up saying "INSERT GAME" all the time.  And
today, when I sat down with it, the new one started doing the same thing and
worse, hitting power on would make it go click, click, the shut the power
back off.  I reseated the cart. twice, pulled the AC, and checked the batt.,
and one more hit on the power button and it came up with the game.  Strange...
I plugged the AC back in and away I went; have any other LYNXers been seeing
this kinda effect with any other games? ( I have a LYNX II).
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|------------- |---   |---   ---   ----    |    |   |  || |    This space
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||    /^\    | |      | \    |        |    |    |   |     |
||   /   \   | |      |  \   ----  ----    |    -----  [] |     for rent.
||  / /|\ \  |____________________________________________|
||  L/_|_\J  |                                            |
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