Random Game O' the Day: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack

[digitalpress]

Hey, the random game generator chose an Intellivision game today. And not just *any* Intellivision game - it chose the pack-in for the console itself! My guess is that every Intellivision owner has played this game at some time.

Share your mini-review here!

DP Guide sez:

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack (Intellivision, by Mattel/INTV) $1/R1
a.k.a. Poker
Designed by David Rolfe. A pack-in with the Intellivision console until 1983 (it was replaced by Astrosmash at that time), more Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack cartridges were made than any other Intellivision title. The "dealer" is the official mascot of the Classic Video Game Syndicate
(http://www.digitpress.com/syndicate). Traditional/Casino Game. SANTULLI SLANT: Who can forget the shifty eyes on the dealer in Mattel's LVP&BJ? This was many people's first look at what the console could do, and many were impressed: the colorful graphics, higher resolution (than others before it), and incredible sound - listen to those cards shuffle! - left a permanent mark in Intellivision owners' minds. [Gr: 7, So: 7, Ga: 6, Ov: 7] c1979 Mattel. #2611.

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/intellivision/pokerblackjack.gif

[IntvGene]

While this game didn't have that great of an impression on me, I think it succeeded in making an impression on many people at the time. As Joe noted, the sounds were authentic, and the graphics were surprising at the time. I liked how the cards were so big. The shifting of the eyes, such a minor graphical effect had a huge effect on people's impression and interpretation of the game. The game had a nice bunch of variations to play, and also used the intellivision controller well. It's funny to read on the BlueSkyRangers site how the game went from being the most distributed cartridge as a pack-in (almost 2 million by 1982), and then when Astrosmash replaced it, sales fell to only 2500.

[YoshiM]

Oh man, I remember THAT game very well. A friend of mine and I used to play it a lot when we were kids. We'd jack up how much our purses were and we'd always enter "99" as our bid. We did it so much we actually had a stupid song that was basically "press NNNNNINTYYYYY-nine, press NNNNNINTYYYYY-nine, press...."

Yeah, we were kids.

The only downside of the game was when you played with another person and had to trust that they wouldn't peek at your cards (and you had to figure out a way to sneak a peek of theirs without them noticing).

[Retsudo]

Yep, my first game for intellivision.

[Jorpho]

So was this much different from Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker on the Colecovision?

[chrisbid]

its how i learned to play poker *sniff*

[s1lence]

The dealer in that game still pisses me off.

[NeoZeedeater]

This game has always dwelled in my collection virtually unplayed. It wasn't until I got Artworx Strip Poker that I cared for a video card game. ;)