Hoyle Card Games 2001

Age Group: Age 8 and Up, Adults Type: Board and Card Games Price: $30

PC version requires:
Win 95/98/00/ME, Pentium 133+, 16 MB RAM, 4xCD-ROM, 60 MB HD

Mac version requires:
PowerPC, PowerMac G3, iMac, Sys 7.5.3+, 32 MB RAM, 4xCD-ROM, 100 MB HD

Description:

Start with a cute animated sequence of dancing cards and then choose from 16 different games: Poker, Bridge, Hearts, Euchre, Crazy Eights, Cribbage, Gin Rummy, Memory Match, War, Spades, Go Fish, Pinochle, Old Maid, Pitch, Canasta and Solitaire (with 50 variations). Play alone (Solitaire) or with up to 7 other players (Poker). Opponents can be chosen from 10 entertaining computer players. These animated characters range from tough talking female forest ranger Robin to the morphing alien Gax, who does impersonations of Elvis, Monroe and Schwarzenegger. Human opponents can be selected for a few of the games - Cribbage, Crazy Eights and War.

There are all kinds of options for card and background appearance as well as game opponents and these are assigned randomly unless you choose to specify them. That keeps it simple and gives nice variety to play. You can design your own character's screen appearance by selecting facial shapes, eyes and eyewear, hair and hats. There are 2 different settings in which to start play - the Cabin (most of the games are to be found in the bookcase) with mountain views and wind blown trees; and Space, in which games are brought up from the controls as holographic images, while you see stars and a galaxy outside. Games selected from these spots have appropriate folksy and high tech backgrounds. Games can also be started quickly from the command menu. There is a wide range of customization including the rate at which computer opponents play their hands, and how talkative they are.

Game animations add a lot of fun. Fish jumping around a fishing hole in Go Fish, animated tanks in War, and the troll passed around in Old Maid are entertaining for the younger crowd, while the computer characters' dialogue amuses the rest of us. If you just want to play and not listen, dialogue and background music can be turned off. The CD comes with a fascinating 136-page booklet on card games - their inventors and history, rules and strategies. For example, did you know that playing cards were invented by the Chinese and arrived in Europe around 1377 or that Poker started on Mississippi steamboats as a French game called Poque?

Features:

• 16 card games
• 50 Solitaire variations
• 10 animated characters
• Personalized appearance
• Up to 4 players
• Access to Internet games

Technical Aspects:

This program is suitable for someone with auditory difficulty as interaction is mostly visual and textual - though the character dialogue adds a lot of fun and would be missed.

Report and Conclusions:

The only thing lacking is the ability to substitute additional human players in most of the games, for example in Hearts. This would allow 2 or 3 people to play when a foursome is unavailable. Aside from that, my whole family enjoyed this title, from my father to the kids. I also appreciated the board game demos included in the package (Placer Racer, Backgammon and Zen Bones), especially the first two. This program will be a keeper on my desktop, launched often!

You can download a Mac demo.
You can download a PC demo.