IT’S BLACKJACK. IT’S LITERALLY JUST BLACKJACK.

I’ve always been more of a poker guy myself. That being said blackjack is fun, but I prefer it with actual stakes. Removing the risk and reward of gambling removes a large portion of what makes blackjack tense. The graphics and style of this game though led me to hope for more.

PLATFORMS: PC, XB1, iOS, ANDROID, SWITCH
MSRP: $11.99 (PC). $7.99 (XB1), $2.99 (iOS & ANDROID), $9.99 (SWITCH)
PRICE I’D PAY: $2.99

Unfortunately, this game’s Street Fighter II inspired coat of paint is just surface level. The intro, the flying around the world to face new opponents, and the post “battle” quips are just window dressing on a very standard, albeit good, blackjack game. The main goal is to walk away from the table at the end of 10 hands of blackjack with more money than my opponent sitting at the other end of the table. If either I or my opponent craps out, the other wins immediately. That’s it.

I’m most disappointed with the fact that the console versions do not have online play while the PC and mobile versions do. That for me is a deal breaker on such a barebones casino game and local multiplayer on a blackjack video game seems pointless. The price variation between platforms is absurd as well, because the mobiles versions (the cheapest versions of said game) are feature complete and don’t feature any microtransactions (according to Google Play’s storefront) and have a ranked online multiplayer mode. The fact that this mode is absent from the relatively more expensive consoles versions is unacceptable.

At the end of the day though, this is just blackjack. It may be the most aesthetically pleasing version of blackjack, but that’s it. I would recommend skipping the console versions and trying out the mobile versions instead.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.