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Clubhouse Games (DS)
Clubhouse Games (DS)http://shinlist.com/data/images/games/73/173_0.jpgPlatform: DS
Category: Card Battle Games
Publisher: Gearbox Software
Release: 2009-03-21
Size: 7.4 MB
The Good
* Forty-two different games
* most games allow local and online multiplayer modes
* presentation emphasizes clarity over flash
* highly accessible interface uses the touch screen exclusively.
The Bad
* Certain card games impose hand limits and allow negative bankrolls
* Can't send messages to strangers in worldwide mode.
Board games, card decks, and sets of dice take up a ton of physical space and
are a real pain in the behind to drag down out of the closet, but they sure are
loads of fun to play when your buddies are over. Drink some beverages, break out
the pretzels, and have a grand old time into the wee hours. Clubhouse Games for
the Nintendo DS eliminates all of that storage space and prep-work hassle. It
packs 42 different parlor games into a single DS cartridge and lets you play
them alone or against your friends, whether they're in the same room with you or
chilling out in their own homes across town.
It's like you packed 42 different
games into your pocket.
The diverse selection of games includes both popular and esoteric standbys.
There are 18 different card games, broken down into basic, intermediate, and
advanced categories. Basic card games include Old Maid, Spit, I Doubt It,
Sevens, Memory, and Pig. Intermediate card games include Blackjack, Hearts,
President, Rummy, Seven Bridge, Last Card, and Last Card Plus. Advanced card
games include Five Card Draw Poker, Texas Hold 'Em, Nap, Spades, and Contract
Bridge. Next up, there are 12 different board games, which are split into basic
and advanced categories. Basic board games include Checkers, Chinese Checkers,
Dots and Boxes, Hasami Shogi, Reversi, Connect Five, and Grid Attack. The
advanced lineup includes Backgammon, Chess, Shogi, Field Tactics, and Ludo. Also
included are nine different variety and action games, including Soda Shake,
Dominoes, Koi-Koi, Word Balloon, Balance, Billiards, Bowling, Darts, and
Takeover. Rounding out the list are three single-player games: Solitaire,
Mahjong, and a slide puzzle game called Escape.
Don't see your favorite game on the list? It could be hiding there under an
alias. For instance, the popular schoolyard game "Bulls***" is listed under its
politically correct title, I Doubt It. Other examples include Grid Attack,
better known as "Battleship"; Word Balloon, which is a nice name for "Hangman";
Last Card Plus, a standard deck version of "Uno"; and President, which many a
giggling child first learns as "A-Hole." The lineup is so diverse that everyone
is pretty much guaranteed to find a few games to enjoy. The best part is that
the majority of games in the collection let multiple players compete, either by
linking multiple systems together or by logging into Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connect
online service. The only exceptions are the single-player games and a couple of
the basic card games.
What's especially great is that the whole product, from top to bottom, is put
together in such a way that anyone, regardless of age or amount of video game
experience, can just jump in and begin playing. The majority of games follow the
same rules as their real-life counterparts, so you probably already know how to
play many of them. For the games you are not familiar with, rulebooks are just a
single tap away. The graphics and audio are very plain, but the upside to the
no-nonsense table depictions and cheesy lounge music is that everything is
neatly organized and easy to see. When you're not in a game, instructions are
displayed on the upper screen, while interactive menus and buttons are situated
on the touch-sensitive bottom screen. When you're playing a game, the upper
screen shows the game board or table, while the lower screen shows your cards or
pieces and lets you manipulate them by using the stylus. It's all very
accessible. Laying down cards and manipulating pieces is always a simple matter
of tapping and dragging onscreen objects with the stylus. For action games, such
as darts, billiards, and bowling, you grab onto the dart, stick, or ball by
touching them with the stylus and let them fly by quickly flicking and lifting
the stylus away. Simple animations show the objects sailing across the screen.
Obviously, physical games played in this fashion don't pack as many thrills as
their real-life counterparts, but the video renditions are still enjoyable.
Touch-screen control makes the games
accessible to anyone.
All of the games are generally as you remember them, although some of the
card games have been streamlined in the interest of saving time. You can't split
in Blackjack, for example, and betting in Texas Hold 'Em has a fixed limit. If
you had dreams of yelling out "All in!" like Johnny Chan, well, you'll have to
settle for "Sixty bucks!" The most controversial changes concern the
implementation of hand limits and negative bankrolls. To make a long story
short, you can continue to play when you're in the negative, and games end after
a set number of hands, as opposed to continuing until everyone is eliminated.
The games are still fun despite these changes, but there's no denying that some
of the tension is lost when people can bet from the red, and chip leaders can
fold their way to wins. It's worth repeating, though, that these changes apply
only to specific card games. Anyone who is looking for a great Poker game or a
great Blackjack game won't find it here, but when you consider that this is a
collection of 42 different games, the renditions included in Clubhouse Games are
more than enough.
On your own, you can expect to kill quite a lot of time futzing around with
all of the various games. For games that allow you to compete against multiple
opponents, you can generally specify the number of CPU-controlled bots. As far
as the CPU's play is concerned, it rolls over on the easy/difficult setting and
presents a competent challenge on the higher settings. Advanced games, such as
Chess and Texas Hold 'Em, are still a little too advanced for the CPU, which
means that seasoned players shouldn't have any trouble besting their computer
opponents. Those games are the exceptions, however, rather than the norm.
Single-player modes include free play, stamp, and mission. In the stamp mode,
you earn stamps for beating the CPU at each game in the collection. The mission
mode, meanwhile, contains a number of time- and score-based challenges that are
oriented around all of the various games. Your reward for collecting stamps and
completing missions is a bunch of new avatars and table color schemes, as well
as the ability to access a couple of games that are locked away from the start.
Solo play is nice, but where Clubhouse Games truly shines is in regard to its
multiplayer features. Playing against other people introduces the human element
that makes simple games like these so addictive. Even the card games that have
had their rules changed to encourage turtling tend to get crazy when other
people are involved, especially if those other people are your so-called
friends. Thirty-seven of the 42 included games support multiplayer play, either
in one-on-one fashion or with groups of up to eight players. A pop-up
Pictochat-style interface lets everyone send messages back and forth while
playing.
Of the 42 games, 37 support multiple
players through system link or Nintendo's online service.
You and your friends can link multiple DS systems together from the same
room, or you can meet up with people online using Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connect
service. To get a group going in the same room, you need only a single copy of
Clubhouse Games. The person with the cartridge can beam individual games to
everyone else. The process takes only a few seconds, and everyone ends up with
the full experience (the same graphics, the same music, and so on). If you go
online, you can organize games with people on your friends list or challenge
random players in the worldwide mode. There are already loads of people playing
online, so much so that jumping into a game with strangers usually takes only
about 30 seconds. Leaderboard rankings are tracked for every game, and the
system even maintains a separate leaderboard for you and your friends.
Disconnects are handled in a democratic fashion. When a player quits, he or she
is replaced by a CPU player. As long as you play through to the end, you'll be
credited for your performance. The only lame thing about the online experience
is that Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connect safeguards make it impossible to invite
strangers to join your friends list and limit the chat messages you can exchange
in worldwide games to preset phrases.
Clubhouse Games is a perfect example of what Nintendo is trying to accomplish
with its Touch Generations initiative. It packs 42 different games that many
people are already familiar with onto a single cartridge and makes them
accessible to anyone who can figure out how to tap the screen and drag the
stylus. Some of the games included in the collection aren't the best renditions,
but there are plenty of them, especially when you consider how many games you
get for the purchase price. On top of that, you can play against your friends,
whether they're in the same room or across town. It's like having access to your
grandparents' game closet everywhere you go.
By Frank Provo
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