Ultimate Card Games

[Nostalgic]

Has anyone else picked up Ultimate Card Games for the GBA?

 

I, of course, had to. It was a difficult search, too. The stores I checked in Michigan didn't seem to even know what it was, much less carry it. I ended up finding it at a mall in Mentor, OH, a suburb of Cleveland. (No, I didn't drive down there just for the game. I was visiting a friend near Cleveland and stumbled upon the game.)

 

The big surprise for me was the graphics and interface. Both try to simulate play on a computer rather than a video game console. The D-pad controls a mouse cursor (though it thankfully jumps from option to option or card to card, making for fast movement). There's a drop-down menu at the top. The computer players even have names and faces. There's about an hour's worth of background music.

 

As for the card games, there are a lot of them, especially in the solitaire group. I've yet to play every game since there are so many.

 

A nice feature is the ability to tweak the rules of many of the regular card games. It's good to finally play Hearts without all the "be nice to each other" rules - you can set it up to allow playing hearts before they are broken, play points on the first trick, and not lead with the two of clubs. However, I do miss the ability to bid blind in Spades (this one only allows blind nil bids) and to add the jokers as the Big Spade and Little Spade. Also odd is that in Euchre, 10 points is not one of the options for end score, nor is there a "stick the dealer" option. (I found that the computer players have not yet passed around the table. When I passed on the second round, just to see if I could, there was a pause of several seconds.) You cannot count your own points in Cribbage, but since the computer does it for you, it does make for a fast game.

 

The computer players do seem to be pretty sharp in some cases; I've generally been solidly beat at Gin Rummy (which I admittedly don't play much) and Hearts. However, I've also backed into shooting the moon in Hearts; the computer doesn't seem to try to spread the points around to prevent this. The worst playing I've seen so far comes in Euchre (though it's no surprise that I would notice this ). If a computer player goes alone, it may lead low trump or an off-suit rather than coming out blazing, draining all the opponent's trump. I also ordered the right bower into a computer player's hand (I had five trump in mine) and I never saw that player use it - apparently, he discarded it!

 

If you have picked up this game, how do you like it, and have you noticed any other peculiar behavior?

[SteveW]

When I was a kid, my sister taught me all sorts of card games, and I didn't like hardly any of them. The one I still play would be Klondike Solitaire. The only other card game I ever learned to play and occasionally play now is poker. But I tend to favor the Intellivision's Las Vegas Poker over other versions, even over the old strip poker games on my old Amiga. :wink:

[Albert]

This sounds great, I enjoy card games and having a slew of them in one cartridge for the GBA with a nice interface. Thanks for the review!

 

..Al

[Nostalgic]

I didn't intend for it to be a review... I just ended up with a few comments to share before I asked about everyone's opinions. I guess I got a little verbose.