"Snap! Everyday Fun & Games: Blackjack" (PC)

Nothing much, other than a simple game of Blackjack. That's all.

Another one of those games that should come pre-installed with the purchase of a new PC. Given that this is the one game mostly everyone knows how to play, even in the casinos, I don't think I need to explain any more of how it's played.

After installation, it starts straight to the game as usual: placing your bets and dealing the cards. You start with $2,500 to play, and you continue to play until your stash sinks to $0. When that happens, there's a button on the lower right to add additional funds, to where another fresh $2,500 gets added to continue your game play. You compete against 3 other players, controlled by the computer, while making quick decisions on hitting, standing, splitting, doubling down and/or surrendering. The game plays normally with no surprises or anything of that kind. Also, since the second player to my right kept losing, she kept gaining back her winnings. I wanted to see what would happen if one of the computer players lost all their money. My guess is they'll add funds to their gambling stash if that ever happens. Besides that, it would've been humorous to see (though I'd notice that the game seems to favor the computer players to prevent them from losing it all).

Graphically, it's right up there, though it's quite advanced during the time of its release. By today's standards, it's great but not mind-boggling; It's retro computer gaming at its finest. The animation, namely the dealer's arms and hands, are quite good and a bit inspiring to those into video game graphics programming. The ambient sounds is something you'd hear in a typical Las Vegas casino. It's pure and nice to hear, along with sound effects of the chips being stacked and cards being flicked. What I also liked was seeing that you can bet with high limited chips like a $500 or even a $1,000 chip which are denominations you don't see very often (unless you're a high-rolling quadrillionaire).

Unlike Snap!'s Bingo, this actually tallies your wins and losses, how many blackjacks you drew and how long you've been playing. With it, you can keep track of your stats and your gameplay overall. Not too much more from that point on.

It's just blackjack. To my knowledge, while playing this game, there isn't any other screen besides the advertisement in trying out a "newly released" casino game for the PC when you exit the game. Other than that, the only screen you see is the table where the game play happens. I'm sure there are creative ways to pizzazz up one's playing of blackjack, but it wouldn't feel as normal as it is playing at a real casino. Besides that, unless you're a video/computer game collector of casino games, there isn't much you'll gain from this.

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he started blogging in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, plus playing old video/MS-DOS games, digital video archiving, listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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