CasinoRPG – Previewed
By Marcus Estrada
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Many of us enjoy the thrill of gambling at least once in a while. I’d be lying to suggest that even I don’t enjoy a jaunt to Las Vegas every once in a while. The only issue with this is the expense almost certainly incurred by a visit. The odds are always stacked against you. CasinoRPG takes something we’re all familiar with and attempts to compartmentalize it into a browser-based game. I sat down with the game, intending to get a feel for it, and ended up glued to it for three hours. Here’s what occurred during that time.
Hour One
The first task was to make an avatar. For some reason, there is a great deal of focus on making them an individual via different shirts, pants, and shoes. I chose a snappy pink shirt but didn’t splurge on anything else. After all, there were two types of currency and one of them seemed to be something you’ll refill with real money.
After beautifying myself, I went out on the town only to be accosted by the mayor. He suggested that I get a feel for the town by completing a quest or two of his. One goal was to play with a slot machine or poker table. As card games can take a bit of time, I opted for a machine instead. These tiny objectives didn’t seem so bad and were simple enough to complete.
Hour Two
Again, there are more tasks to complete. This time I have to take them from other members of the city. There were a few wandering around the immediate area, but it seemed there were a very small amount overall. After wandering the incredibly massive area I found some more which gave such unusual tasks as throwing a crow at someone or digging through trash cans in a certain amount of time.
Eventually I settled upon a slot machine request from a nearby local. Basically, I was scared of getting lost in this sprawling map with casinos occupying space on every block. His task wasn’t entirely easy though as he required me to win a certain amount of poker chips (one form of currency) and I am incredibly reserved when gambling. After copiously clicking the spin button the goal was met. One thing that bothered me though was that the game doesn’t allow spins to continue when players navigate away from the browser!
Hour Three
Oh, wait, isn’t one of the biggest points about this game that you can actually build your own casino empire? The mayor came back and reminded me of that after I’d started believing it was just a gambling sim. After introducing this fact he restricted this gameplay feature since I needed a building permit first. Great, even in the digital world there is red tape! In order to get the building permit, there was yet another requirement to beat some missions.
This is where I started to get really confused. One task was to be a part-time janitor at a casino. My player would have mop and scrub the casinos of other players, since apparently many have already gone through this song and dance routine. However, every casino I tried to visit was spotless already so that career quickly ended. Eventually, I settled back in with my slot machine buddy and worked to get thousands of poker chips. After a while it became apparent that sitting in front of my computer fretting about the wins and losses of a digital slot machine game was ridiculous and I forced myself to stop for the day.
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And yet, I continue to log back into to CasinoRPG to do just that. There are definitely missions and different ways to play the game but gambling has a very simple appeal. There are many, many sites that offer the same basic simulation, but CasinoRPG makes it look very pretty. It also appears that the casinos are not stacked against you, as through sheer brute force I was able to increase my funds tremendously. Fans of casino games without access to them in real life (and would prefer it that way) might find this game a worthy replacement once it’s released.
[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/marcus.jpg” ] Marcus is a fellow with a love for video games, horror, and Japanese food. When he’s not writing about games for a multitude of sites, he’s usually still playing one. One day when he became fed up with the way sites would ignore niche titles he decided to start his own site by the name of Pixel Pacas. Writing about video games is something he hopes to continue doing for many years to come. Some of Marcus’s favorite games include Silent Hill 2, Killer7, and The Sims. [/author]
