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Las Vegas Blackjack!
Place your bets, ditch some cards, or play with the ones you've got. The
computer offers the usual enticements - double down and insurance - but the
odds are firmly in favor of the house. There's no limit on how big your
bet is, so you're even free to bet an ante that'll have you screaming
"uncle!" if you lose.
(Magnavox, 1978)
I'm not a big fan of card games. In fact, when I got hold of this rather
common cartridge recently, the lovely Mrs. Green actually had to teach me
how to play blackjack. I was hopeless. But it's grown on me. I've now
had the opportunity to play both this Odyssey 2 version
and a Game Boy Color edition which is part of
a card game cartridge called Las Vegas Cool Hand. And I have to
say I like the Odyssey version better.
Though the graphics are incredibly simple, do they really need to be
anything more? If the houses on the cards mattered, yes, a little more
graphic precision - or perhaps a wider color pallette, considering the
Odyssey's graphical limitations - would be called for. But when it comes
to blackjack, you don't need much more than what the Odyssey can give
you.
A couple of minor bits of trivia here - Las Vegas Blackjack! is
one of the very few Odyssey 2 games played entirely with the keyboard
with no joystick use whatsoever. Additionally, the game exists under two
different titles - sort of. The box clearly says Las Vegas Blackjack!
but every cartridge simply says Blackjack!. And there are a very
few rare cases - and no, I don't have one to show you - where the box only
said Blackjack!; overseas, where the game was sold for the European
Videopac and Jopac systems, it's known as Las Vegas Gambling.
Rating: 
A whole dollar - trade it in for more quarters, you'll be playing this
game a lot.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
 
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