Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with bingo to make it exciting to play either, and although the developers of
Bingo tried, there’s just not enough here to warrant a purchase or play. When you first set up the game, it’s set up so that you aren’t playing against anyone, “so you can get used to Bingo.” All right. The game works just like real Bingo -- you have cards that you mark, you listen to the announcer as he calls the various numbers, and once you have a pattern that matches whatever you’re going after, you call “Bingo.”
You can play against from 1 to 100 computer opponents, which makes it a good bit more interesting, but it still doesn’t have much game appeal. You can also play on the Internet, but that grows old just as fast. The game offers more than 100 different board configurations and variations on gameplay, which is nice, but the strategic difference between Bingo Bugle and Star and Crescent escapes me. You’re still putting dots on cards.
Now, credit must be given where credit is due. The developers did the best they could with what they had, and as it is, Bingo Bingo Bingo is a respectable computerized version of the real thing. The problem lies in the fact that no one really needed a computer version of Bingo. Part of the fun of the game is in the fact that you play it, especially at church fairs, at a social event, talking to your friends and the game being something of a secondary thing. Bingo forces you to concentrate fully on the bingo game itself, and it’s just not fun.
You can print out the cards and play that way, but that’s much more of a bother than it’s worth.
Vascon packed in two other games with Bingo: a Keno game and a Solitaire card game. The Keno game is just as lifeless as Bingo, but the Solitaire game is actually a pretty solid implementation of Klondike, Freecell, and whatnot. However, it’s not enough to redeem the package.
