Nevada Casino Review

Stand Alone Software, a Palm OS developer based outside of Chicago, has just released Nevada Casino for the Palm platform. In it, some of your favorite gambling games will come at no charge to you, or your banker, other than an upfront $17 price. Why go bankrupt in Vegas when you could just as easily go bankrupt on your Palm?

Nevada Casino tries to recreate the casino experience on your Palm handheld. Using the Zodiac you can get both portrait and widescreen, with the graffiti area. The visuals consist of cards being dealt, including an optional distribution of the cards, the jackpot spinning, etc. Standard fare for a Palm game, but the games have color variety, that is missing from several Palm games.

The five casino games included are blackjack, craps, roulette, slots, and video poker. The two that involve more skill than luck are blackjack and video poker. I spent most of my time playing this, as the slots especially are a real snooze fest compared to real-life machines. Slots offer the same lever-pulling, wheel-spinning ‘action’ that you’d find in Vegas, but the main difference is, there seems to be no point to a game of luck.

Blackjack is the game that stands out most in my mind when thinking of Nevada Casino. You can play as four players simultaneously, with options such as split, surrender, and insurance on a dealer’s Ace. Other than that, you have the basic options of hitting for new cards, and calling. Using your stylus, you can drag chips to raise the bet on each hand that you decide to play.

For those of you don’t know the basic mechanics of blackjack, two initial cards are dealt, of which your goal is to reach 21. An ace and a face card is a ‘blackjack’, the highest value. If you surpass 21, you bust. The nearest hand to 21 wins, with a push (a tie) as an optional conclusion to a hand.

Overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with the lesser three gambling games included on this, that being roulette, slots, and craps. Blackjack and video poker are both simple card games that anyone could enjoy. For some of you, it might bring back weekend memories, sitting around a card table, playing cards with friends. The price, however, makes this a hard sell.