Gin Rummy (XBLA)

The Xbox Live Arcade service has a very wide range of games, right from your hardcore style ‘must beat my high score’ titles such as Geometry Wars, down to your puzzle and card games such as Catan and Uno. With all these other card games being featured it was only a matter of time before Gin Rummy made the trek to the service.

There isn’t all that much to tell about the gameplay of GR, as certain buttons are mapped out to perform in-game actions that you would otherwise do manually at a card table. If you’re new to the game there is a tutorial included and this guides you through a series of turns to help break you in to the game.

The AI does a good job of replicating a human opponent, as it will play to get its best possible finishing hand, while at the same time not dawdle long enough for you to outgun it. However, at the harder difficulty levels it’s just down right ruthless.

The only gripe about the experience would have to be the lack of progression or some sort of ‘career’ type mode. There's no tournament or money to win and no prizes to unlock - it's just a match to waste some time on with no direct consequence.

Other than your standard Gin Rummy there’s also Oklahoma Gin, Hollywood Gin, 3-Hand Gin, and Speed Gin. These add a bit of spice to the game that you’re playing with each mode having a slight twist on game structure and rules. There’s also online play for 1v1 or 2v2 with a number of set-up options to help play the style of game you want. Matches are lag free and also support the Xbox Live vision camera.

Unfortunately the presentation and graphical style doesn’t match its card genre peers. A few touches to make backgrounds and cards more colourful and vibrant certainly wouldn’t have gone amiss. As for audio there’s a smooth jazz feel to the background music, to break up the ever authentic sounds of the deck of cards rustling.

It's a decent adaptation of a fun card game, and at 400 Microsoft Points it's priced just right. If a few things were tidied up this would be one of the elite card genre titles, but it still holds its own against the competition.

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