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I've always had an affinity for the Leisure Suit Larry games. Every Larry game that I've played was an enjoyable experience. The Larry Casino game is no exception. The basic premise of the game is pretty simple -- a simulated casino filled with the lovable characters from all of the Leisure Suit Larry games, this time with Internet capabilities. You'll find the standard casino games with some extra features added in to the mix. Blackjack, Poker, Roulette, Slots and Craps are the standard gambling games. The extras are the comedy clubs, the "Say What!?" club, restaurants and bars.

The game was created with socializing on the Internet in mind. The comedy clubs and the "Say What!?" club, are the party games in which all players who have lost all their Larrybucks at the tables hang out. A few enterprising souls hang out there as well to soak in the atmosphere. In the comedy clubs, you basically tell each other jokes and everyone gives a vote to how funny that joke was and you earn Larrybucks accordingly. The funnier the joke, the more Larrybucks you make. The drawback to this idea is that most people just go in there, type anything and then vote very funny for any joke that comes along. It defeats the concept of having party games and making Larrybucks. If you are lucky enough to join a room in which people actually enjoy telling each other jokes, then you've luckily found a rare group of players. The "Say What!?" club is basically a game like Bezerk.com's ACROPHOBIA game. Players type in some letters or words and then everyone tries to come up with a definition of the made up word. PLayers then vote on which definition they liked best. You earn Larrybucks according to how many votes you got on your definition, and you are not able to vote on your own definition. This section is much better thought out as I found people are actually playing the game.

What I really liked about the game is the many facial expressions available to every avatar that you can use. If used at the appropriate moment, they can be really hilarious. However they have a tendency to be over-used by many players and that can prove to be an annoyance, since everytime an expression is used, a sound is played as well. People have a tendency to use an expression many times in a row. The on-line portion of the game also simulates a real casino table quite well. Many times an amateur Blackjack player would join my game and be in the last spot on the table. As any Blackjack veteran would know, you always want a good player sitting at the last spot on the table since that player would usually determine the chances of the dealer going bust. I've met people sitting on the last spot who would hit when the dealer has a 6 as the face card and all the previous cards dealt were 9 or below. Since the dealer always has to hit on 16 or below, and chance dictates that the dealer probably has a 16 if the face card is 6, and most cards in the deck are the number 10, chances are that the dealer would go bust. Having an amateur sitting on the last spot is the last thing you want to happen, and that happens frequently at casinos.

The game also includes various hotel/resort amenities in which you can upgrade your room, buy memorabilia with your Larrybucks, marry someone, and dine in with another player at one of the restaurants or bars. Given that this is a Larry game, you'll also be able to invite players of your sexual preference (whether they really are what they claim to be or not is still typical internet guesswork) into your hotel room as well for some errr * cough * * cough *, you get the idea. You can also give gifts or money to other players as well, I think this idea adds a lot to the game. The more expensive your gifts are, the more prestige you have among the players and you get to hang out in the better restaurants and bars which only allow players with a certain amount of Larrybucks in. After all, this is a casino game, and money talks.

The game also includes various hotel/resort amenities in which you can upgrade your room, buy memorabilia with your Larrybucks, marry someone, and dine in with another player at one of the restaurants or bars. Given that this is a Larry game, you'll also be able to invite players of your sexual preference (whether they really are what they claim to be or not is still typical internet guesswork) into your hotel room as well for some errr * cough * * cough *, you get the idea. You can also give gifts or money to other players as well, I think this idea adds a lot to the game. The more expensive your gifts are, the more prestige you have among the players and you get to hang out in the better restaurants and bars which only allow players with a certain amount of Larrybucks in. After all, this is a casino game, and money talks.

This is a fun game if you like gambling. It has many ideas that are interesting, but sometimes backfires on itself given the situation I encountered in the Comedy Clubs. The one thing that I would like to have seen included in the game is Baccarat. Baccarat is my favorite gambling game and it is the only casino game that isn't in Larry Casino (hey Al, if you're reading this, add Baccarat in as a patch or something). If you can find this game on sale somewhere, I think it's a great buy that will give you many hours of entertainment.

This game has great replay value, as it is the closest thing you can find to a real casino in an online environment. You get to meet all sorts of people and gambling games are always a nice way to pass time. I know that I will be keeping this game for a long time, logging on occasionally to gamble once in a while. It won't spawn millions of fan web pages like Quake did, but I predict that people will be playing for a long time to come. I have seen around 30-50 people from all over the world in the game during the wee hours of the day, and I assume that more are on-line during regular daytime hours. I have never found a lack of people wanting to gamble.

The controls are pretty much standard point and click. It's as intuitive as any current interfaces. You hit "Enter" and then type something whenever you want to chat. You also get to customize the kind of rules you want to use for off-line mode, be it the Vegas rules or the Atlantic City rules. In some on-line games if you create the game, you'll get to choose the rules as well. The options to customize the speed or sound in the game are plentiful as well. Unfortunately, there are no short-cut keys that I can tell of and the documentation is scant.

The graphics are cartoonish, based on the last Leisure Suit Larry game "Love for Sail." I find it quite nice for a game of this genre. Since most other casino games available are static 2d bitmapped graphics, the cartoonish animations of Larry Casino adds a lot of character, and puts itself above all other games in the same category. You can only get so fancy with a casino game, but Larry breaks the mold.

The sound is great. You can customize sound hotkeys to your heart's content. It's an easter egg of sorts, so I'll leave it to you to find out how to customize your sound hotkeys. There are many many one liners included in the game and these sound hotkeys are your way of saying something for the occasion (if the phrase you want is available in the game). Many phrases are taken straight from the other Larry games. The music is the standard Leisure Suit Larry theme, and the voice acting is top-notched (as in all Larry games that have voice).

I encountered no glitches in installing the game since it uses the standard Sierra installation program. The game runs very well in Windows 98 and Windows 95 with DirectX 5. All the things you need to get the game up and running are included. The game also has an auto-update feature which will download the latest patches and update the game.

This is a fun game if you like gambling. It has many ideas that are interesting, but sometimes backfires on itself given the situation I encountered in the Comedy Clubs. The one thing that I would like to have seen included in the game is Baccarat. Baccarat is my favorite gambling game and it is the only casino game that isn't in Larry Casino (hey Al, if you're reading this, add Baccarat in as a patch or something). If you can find this game on sale somewhere, I think it's a great buy that will give you many hours of entertainment.