Customer Reviews

Bicycle Casino Games

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Microsoft has set the standard in challenging your gambling skills, while providing you with an exciting casino-style gaming experience. It's the best product of its kind! Have all the fun without spending a dime in Bicycle Casino.

Gameplay

Experience the lights, challenge, and excitement of a Vegas-style adventure. Microsoft brings the whole package right to your PC in Bicycle Casino. Enter your name, choose one of many animated characters to represent you, and set your starting bankroll as you prepare to press your luck and test your gambling skills at one of three casinos: Treasure Island At The Mirage, The Mirage, and The Bellagio.

In preparation for gameplay, be sure to personalize your experience by setting the game options to suit your needs. Whether you're a beginning gambler that's new to the casino gaming industry or an expert needing a new challenge, 17 exciting games await you as you enter the casino game floor. The featured games include Blackjack, Roulette, Slot Machines, Baccarat, and various types of poker such as 5 Card Draw, 7 Card Stud, and many others. Simply slide your mouse over the table to capture the game being offered and click to play the game of your choice. It's that simple! Game rules and playing instructions can easily be accessed for each game, so you shouldn't have any problems getting started.

Play against the dealer or inviting other players to your table. Bet conservatively or risk high stakes. Play single games or challenge your skills in tournament play.. The options seem endless throughout your casino gaming experience.

Unique to Bicycle Casino is the tournament play offering. This sets it apart from other casino-style PC games. This truly sets the standard for future casino-game developers. Tournament play can be played in Casino Challenge or Freestyle Challenge. Casino Challenge takes your gambling skills to the limit by challenging you in all of the games. You must qualify in one casino to move to the next round that's being played at the next casino. Freestyle Challenge allows you to select the games you want to compete in and lets you set your own pace while still enabling you to advance in the competition.

All three casinos offer complimentary gifts as you reach specified criteria in your gameplay. All gifts must be obtained at all three casino's to be allowed to enter the prestigious high rollers' area in The Bellagio casino, reserved for only the best of the best.

This game is a must have for all casino gaming enthusiasts. It represents a myriad of beautiful colors, challenging casino gaming realism, exciting sounds, and actual casino video footage.

Gameplay Score: 92

Graphics

With vivid, bright colors, realistic re-creations of gaming tables, and authentic casino architecture, all of the graphics are very detailed. I was, however, rather disappointed with the animated characters portrayed in the game; I thought they were too mechanical and corny.

Graphics Score: 85

Sound

The sounds make you feel like you're in an actual casino. All of the background voices, sound effects, and music add to the realism of the game.

Sound Score: 90

Technical

I didn't experience any glitches or hang-ups. Installation was also easy. Gameplay was smooth, with no lockups or crashes.
Technical Score: 95

Value

This game is a must have for casino-gaming enthusiasts. Although this is an excellent game that can be played by everyone, it would most likely appeal only to a certain class of people. It's easy to learn and understand and is a great value for anyone who enjoys a challenging, Vegas-style adventure.
Value Score: 85

Overall

Bicycle Casino is the best PC casino-gambling software yet! The game's very user friendly with easy to follow instructions. The graphics and sounds add realism to the gaming environment. While the game is fun, Bicycle Casino will most likely only appeal to a limited audience; specifically those gamers who enjoy a Vegas-style gambling challenge.
Overall Score: 88

This is a review of Bicycle Casino - 21 Games. As someone who plays No Limit Texas Hold 'Em in casino tournaments, I was looking for a Hold 'Em game that I could play with at home to practice with. There are a number of problems with this game.

1) First of all, your opponents will never fold before the flop - even if all they've got is a 2,4 offsuit and there have been 3 rounds of raising and re-raising. That's simply not realistic unless your playing poker with a bunch of absolute morons.

2) This lack of un-realistic opponents makes it difficult to practice poker theory and solid betting/bluffing strategies.

3) The "hints" offered by the game are often off the mark.

4) I find that my mouse blinks the entire time I'm playing the game, which is really annoying. And that's running the game on Windows 2000 with a 1 GHz processor and 256 MB of memory.

5) I don't like having to confirm the fact that I'm folding every time I fold. That slows the game down.

If you're looking for a game that will help you play against morons that simply won't fold before they've seen 4th street, this is your game. If you want to practice poker theory and strategies, buy any of the Hoyle Casino games. I've played a lot of tournament poker and I'll tell ya the characters in the Hoyle game are very close to real poker players that you'll meet in casinos and card rooms.

This game is actually a lot of fun. I get some weird graphics bugs (flickering w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT2) but it's bearable. But there are INEXCUSABLE bugs during game play in the poker games that make the tournaments a miserable experience. You'll be staring at a straight flush and bet the world only to realize the computer thinks you have a pair of 4's. Guess what, you lose to a guy with a pair of 5's!!! The workaround is to hover the mouse above your cards and if the computer is misreading your hand, FOLD. PERIOD. But it's extremely frustrating.

MS acknowledges such bugs but hasn't released a patch. As far as I'm concerned, that means it's not worth buying yet. It would be like buying Flight Simulator knowing that the flight engine would force your plane into a deadly spin every few seconds... ruining the whole point of the program.

Great potential for fun here, and worth it if that's all you're looking for. But wait for an MS fix before wasting your money otherwise.

I have FINALLY found a computer Casino game that is very easy to understand when it comes to the rules of CRAPS. I am getting married this fall and we (my fiance and I) are going to Las Vegas. I have always wanted to learn Craps and none of the books I read helped. Buying this game, I was truely amazed by the different people you can play with and the graphics are very,very good. There's even a character that looks JUST LIKE ME,for real she looks just like me,he,he. (Hint she has on a red headband). Anyway, I have the basics of craps down very good and it only took a few min. I am still mastering the different betting ways but the instructions on this isn't hard to learn. You have to BE in the driver's seat if you want to learn these games. Baccaratt,Carribbean Stud Poker,Pai Gow Poker are games I heard of and learned to play them very well. If you know how to play poker already then the various ways to play will be a BREEZE. There's also,slots,Keno,Big 6 Wheel,,High Roller Rooms,etc. Background music and noises,people talking to you as if you are there. Oh, did I mention the comp cards? These are little perks that you get on your complimentary card when you play the game awhile or win large amounts of money. Things like free food,drinks and hotel nights to name a few. Of course these complimentary gifts ARE NOT REAL so dont go to Vegas trying to claim these things. It's just to make the game more real and fun. I highly recommend this game to all Casino gamers. You will have fun. I have NEVER been to Vegas but I will tell you this, when I go, I look forward to playing For Real with an edge up on Craps, which I am very excited that I learned to play this game. You really can rack up a large Bankroll...

I'm a craps afficiando and wanted a computer game that would allow me my "craps fix" as well as teach me other casino games.

While exploring Bicycle Casino Games, I learned how to play Progressive Blackjack, Pai Gow Poker, and Let it Ride. I already knew regular Blackjack, but was scared off by the odd-looking Progressive Blackjack tables in Vegas. So, it was a lot less intimidating to sit in my comfy computer chair and learn that there's hardly any difference at all between the two games!

Other than Pai Gow, I don't play any poker at all, and it doesn't interest me ... so I can't comment good or bad on that aspect of the software, other than to say they seem to have lots of version of that popular card game available.

I've found only two problems: One is minor and one is really, really annoying! If I'm running another program while playing, sometimes the edges of my monitor will flicker in a distracting way. No biggie! But the real problem I have is when I'm playing a tournament and I end up losing. More than once, the game has locked up and taken most of my money away when I finally got back in. All that hard work wasted! This hasn't happened often, but it did happen twice and that was very irritating.

The fun, variety, and education this software provides outweighs these two bugs, and I'm happy I purchased it.

Great fun, but I really need a life....I spend much too much time trying to win big...

If you ever wanted to know how to play all the games that are available in the casinos, this is a good way to check them out.

I've had this software for about a month now. No problems with graphics, sound or lockups. My biggest problem is that I don't yet have any strategy for playing.... :)

But really, this is a good tool for learning the games. They are all covered. You can see how easy it is to lose your money at roulette. The house edge is very big on that game. Keno is interesting. I never really paid any attenetion to it until I got this game.

There are lots more games. The only games not covered are slots, but who cares about that. I am very happy with my purchase.

If you ever wanted to know how to play all the games that are available in the casinos, this is a good way to check them out.

I've had this software for about a month now. No problems with graphics, sound or lockups. My biggest problem is that I don't yet have any strategy for playing.... :)

But really, this is a good tool for learning the games. They are all covered. You can see how easy it is to lose your money at roulette. The house edge is very big on that game. Keno is interesting. I never really paid any attenetion to it until I got this game.

There are lots more games. The only games not covered are slots, but who cares about that. I am very happy with my purchase.

For the Casino enthusiast, this is a great Casino Game Package, complete with tournaments and most of the casino card games. But, it a has a bug that causes it to lock up every few minutes and must be re-entered, however, it does not lose your "money." It is very aggravating, though, so I am ordering the Bally Casino Games that has better reviews.

This game has so many bugs in it I need to buy Raid!! The game loses the face/name of individual players on a regular basis, it locks up on Pai Gow, when playing craps in the challenge round it fails to recognize when someone runs out of money and you have to forfeit the challenge, and these are just a few of the problems with this game. I usually buy Hoyle but we decided to try this one instead...what a mistake. We have version 2.0 but will probably look to buy the Hoyle game instead. Typical Microsoft product...market it before you get it running!