Full Hand Casino by Hexacto
Games, Price: $19.95
Reviewed January 2003
Of all the casino packs, Full Hand Casino
from Hexacto stands out with its great graphics and easy
to pick up and play interface. The game supports both Palm
and Pocket PC devices, though the Palm version has three
casino games including Blackjack, Video Poker and Slot Machine
while the Pocket PC version has Roulette in addition.
Imagine yourself walking into a casino
having been given $5000 of House Money, and starting to play
your favorite games. That’s exactly what happens when
you launch Full Hand Casino. All the games are integrated
to track one player’s earnings, which means even if
you lost on the Slot Machine you can still win it back on
the Blackjack table. If you loose it all, you can get another
5 grand with a single click. The rules in Full Hand Casino
are authentic, though not very complicated since these games
are quite simple to play.
In Blackjack, you can play all three hands
at once and place any amount on each hand. Max bets are $500.
After the first deal, you will have choices of Hit (getting
more cards), Double (one more card to beat the dealer’s
hand), Stand (hold your cards) and a chance to split (if
you get 2 cards with same value). You can also purchase insurance
if the dealer is showing an Ace. The rule of casino is written
on the table.
The Slot Machine has maximum of three pay
lines and you can bet different amount on each line. You
can check out the winning combos in the Payouts window. Same
as in other games, if your next bets are the same as last,
you can just click on Spin to keep going.
In Video Poker, you will see all the winning
hands listed on top of the cards. You can hold cards by simply
clicking on them. The Roulette game is only available in
the Pocket PC version of Full Hand Casino with very standard
table and rules. You can bet a maximum of 200 for inside
bets and 100-2000 for the outside bets.
Full Hand Casino is designed to simulate
the real casino games, and it’s made easy by sleek
and clean graphics and interface. All game windows are styled
after the real game machines or tables without any distractions.
You will get through the game with very few clicks and usually
can keep on going with a single tap. You can stop a game
anytime, and Full Hand Casino will take you back to the “Lobby” where
you have access to other games. There are also in-game Rules
button and a sound icon for your quick access.
The full sound effects also help
the casino simulation. While the wheel spinning in Roulette
and Slot Machine games are rather realistic, you might
hear the same winning sound FX in all four games. The Pocket
PC version of Full Hand Casino works well on both ARM and
Xscale devices. The Palm version however does not support
Hi-res PDAs: it'll run in standard res on Sony Clié models.
Even though at times I feel that Full Hand
Casino is a little too simple: the Slot Machine could have
more pay lines and the Blackjack game could have a couple
more hands, or even a multiplayer mode for example, Hexacto
did a good job at giving us the popular casino games with
nice graphics and and easy to play style. Even if you are
not one of the high rollers in Vegas, you can easily get
in on the action with someone else’s money. If you
do get lucky, you can sync up your record earnings to Hexacto's
web site.
Playing Hints and Tips
Read the rules if you don’t
know how to play.
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