Casinos have long been a lucrative deal for both players and investors, as the industry keeps reinventing itself from scratch. Nowadays, most gambling happens online, where players can find hundreds of operators and free trials at places like http://www.nodepositmonitor.com and the like.
This massive growth couldn’t have been possible without the incredible efforts of casino game developers who keep pushing design limits to create a flawless experience. However, every once in a while comes a gaming company that tries to take a dip into the casino world – an attempt that often ends unsuccessfully.
Well, no other game company fits that description better than SEGA Sammy. Their 2015 SEGA Casino was to be their proud take on virtual casino games, yet many felt they fell short of the mark. But was this really the case?
Game Selection
First of all, SEGA has been long associated with the casino business. From their now-closed SEGA Park & Casino in London to the branded online casino and the casino resort in South Korea they are building now, one would say that they have a solid experience in the casino business.
This experience can be seen in the game selection, which in today’s standards seems limited and outdated, yet in 2005 was quite standard . All in all, there are 11 casino games on tap:
- Roulette
- Craps
- Baccarat
- Blackjack
- 2 Poker Varieties
- 3 Video Poker games
- Keno
- Chuck-a-Luck
All games can be played in Free or Casino mode, while Poker can also be played in Multiplayer.
Most of the games offered are games of luck, and there isn’t much there in terms of player’s skills. In fact, only the Blackjack game and two Poker games require some participation by the player. This is normal, considering the nature of the games, but the cracks start showing when you dig beyond the surface.
The Game Modes
Let’s start with the player modes. The Free mode is, well, free and choosing it is a dull affair as you won’t be playing for anything else but fun – which doesn’t come in abundance in the game. The Casino Mode, on the other hand, offers some incentive, but is just as unimpressive.
Considering 9 out of 11 games are games of luck, you won’t feel much excited burning through your $1000 in cash by clicking numbers and throwing dice. This makes the Casino Mode only fun in card games, which are only 3 and fairly limited in terms of AI.
In fact, the only mode that really stands out is the Multiplayer, which allows up to five consoles to enjoy a game of Blackjack, Texas Hold ‘Em or Seven Card Stud. But the real question is will you still prefer it over playing real cards?
Gameplay
Once you start playing the games, you realize that even though SEGA obviously love casinos, they don’t love them near enough to really understand them. This can be seen from the touch screen gestures which are poorly incorporated to the annoying sound and bad graphics, but most of all the games themselves.
Games like Baccarat, Craps, Roulette, or Video Poker are as fun as the winnings, but if you keep scoring virtual credits you are bound to get bored soon enough. This leaves us with only 3 games that require some player interaction, which doesn’t make the game very playable.
Considering it has such a low pool of interactive games, you would think that what you are left with will be awesome, yet this is not the overall conclusion. To save unnecessary explanation, the 3 card games can be best summarized with the following:
- Blackjack AI is fairly decent.
- Blackjack only offers single-decks.
- If you don’t plan on practicing strategies, playing Blackjack can easily become a boring game of random guesses.
- Poker games have three unlocked rooms. Other rooms are somewhat hard to unlock.
- Four AI players to play poker with.
- Rooms and players are very predictable, which makes the Poker games not very challenging to experienced players.
The general conclusion about the gameplay of SEGA casino is that once you subtract the shortcomings of interactive games from the dullness of chance-games, you really don’t end up with much to play with.
The Bottom Line
SEGA Casino might have made a strong effort to create a casino game but the final product doesn’t really reflect it. The game is a somewhat confusing combination of SEGA games and casino games, yet it doesn’t fit really well in each sub-category.
The best thing that can be said about the game is that is a game for those who like to keep it simple and retro. But anything else beyond that can’t be found in SEGA casino.
