Genre: Card/Casino

Publisher: American Video

Total time played: 20 Mintues

Short review: The Solitaire we all played growing up, but, this time on the NES.

Interesting links related to Solitaire

• Video Playthrough (7 minutes 36 seconds)

Solitaire

My grandmother taught me to play Poker and multiple versions of Solitaire (the original, 13, 15 and Pyramid). I’m not sure if those are official names or just what she called them. I spent many rainy days playing solitaire in my bedroom, in front of the tv, or anywhere I was bored and had a cheap deck of cards.

NES Solitaire

Instead of being able to play Solitaire anywhere you are bored with a cheap deck of cards you have to own a $50 NES cartridge, an NES and a TV. With TV, Internet, Smart Phones and modern gaming I haven’t played Solitaire in years.

This game brought back memories and it was nice to revisit it after so many years. But, the game offers no options for replay value.

• Select the style of the cards
• Select the color of the cards
• Select 1 (easy) or 3 (hard) card draw
• Music On/Off
• Sound On/Off

No options = No replay value

Not Always Beatable

Because there are a near infinite number of deck shuffles and each time a deck is shuffled it is statistically the first time the deck has ever been in that order it is not always possible to beat Solitaire.

I expected the game to auto “game over” when the game could not be won but it didn’t. If you flip over all of the cards in your flip pile and are not able to move one of those cards onto the game bored that means there is no way to win. If this happens in game you must hit “Select” and then “Start” to restart the game with a fresh shuffle.

Because of this it took me 8 tries to beat the game.

A Happy Accident

The way I decide what game to play next is by having a list of all games I haven’t beaten in a spreadsheet and using a random number generator to decide what I play next. Solitaire was not the next game on the list.

I didn’t own this game until last week. When the game arrived in the mail I spent a few minutes cleaning and testing it. Even though the game isn’t that pretty it brought back memories of childhood and I spent 20 minutes playing and ending up beating the game.

I could taste victory.

Conclusion

The beauty of Solitaire is that it is easy to learn, and accessible to anyone who owns a cheap deck of cards and can be played anywhere. NES Solitaire isn’t cheap and requires you to sit in front of the TV to play. The only good thing is you never have to shuffle or worry about a cat walking across and messing up the cards.

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