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Casino Chaos
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Graphics & Sound:
Casino Chaos has cute graphics that do the job, but time management games are never really known for their graphical prowess. That being said, you'll travel to 5 different iconic casinos in your quest to revamp them and get them back on the map and the various casinos look good.
Your journey will take you to 5 different casinos which have seen better days, and while they are all named something different, all are styled after world famous Las Vegas casinos. There's a rock n' roll themed casino, an Egyptian theme, a Greek and Roman theme, a pirate ship theme, and finally a medieval themed casino. Each one has nice little touches like musical instruments on the wall at the music themed one, to knights and weapons as accents in the medieval one. The only one that didn't really do much for me was the one shaped like a pirate ship. Instead of parrot, pirates and eye patches, the décor looked more like a Florida condo with palm trees designs and such.
You'll have lots of different characters that will frequent your casinos and some have really interesting looks. The hot divorcee has quite a sexy stance, while the millionaire literally flips his wig when he wins and his toupee jumps off his head. I also liked how the high-heeled cocktail waitresses would blow their hair out of their eyes. It was a cute addition.
As for the audio side, all of the requisite casino sounds are present, from the constant din of the slot machines, to the thunk of the ball hitting the roulette wheel. The background music was there, but not really too noticeable over the other sounds of the casinos.
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Gameplay:
You'll go through 10 levels for each of the 5 casino themes and, in each, you'll earn money to buy upgrades to improve the casino and get people to spend more while they are there. You'll begin with a meager dealer and maybe two slot machines, one waitress, one pit boss, one concierge and one cashier. As you make more money, you'll need to spend it wisely since you'll need to be aware how many dealers you'll need on the next level, just in case you don't have enough dealers at the time.
Your gamblers will begin lining up at the door, and they'll have a thought bubble with the type of game they want to play. The various tables and slots have circles with the game's icon in the circle and that's where you'll drop the player off. As you progress, you may have a table with a game of craps and then another table with gold craps icons, indicating bigger money on that game. You'll want to place millionaires and hot babes at these tables to increase your earnings. Sometimes the players will have a thought that they want to switch to a different game and you can send the concierge over to change their mind, or they may want a drink or to cash out. You can simply send over a waitress or drop them at the cashier. If a devil symbol appears above their head, they are trying to cheat, so you sic the pit boss on them. Certain levels may have more people wanting drinks or trying to cheat, so managing how many staff members you have on hand is a must. Once the velvet rope crosses over the entrance, you'll know that your customer supply has ended and the level will end when everyone cashes out.
After each level, you are offered the opportunity to play a different mini-game, gambling some of your earnings in the hopes of making big money. Video Poker, Slots, Roulette, 21 and Blackjack are your game choices, depending on which casino you are currently at, and your winnings can be substantial. But just like at a real casino, so can your losses. At least you can skip these if you are short on cash or not feeling very lucky. |
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Difficulty:
Casino Chaos starts off easily enough, with only a handful of slots and games to manage, but, as the levels progress, it can get really difficult to keep up. Part of the difference between Casino Chaos and standard time management games is that instead of dragging your customers to the location you want them to go to, you simply click on them and then click where you want them to go. This should actually be easier, but sometimes my clicks were unresponsive and that cost me precious seconds.
The other thing that was lacking in Casino Chaos is the ability to increase your customers' happiness while they are gambling, aside from tending to their standard requests. In most games like Diner Dash, you have the ability to fill a customer's drink or give them a snack to increase their happiness. However, with Casino Chaos, their happiness levels seem to only depend on how quickly you got them to their table or machine and whether you matched them to the game they were requesting. Sometimes, their hearts (which indicate their level of happiness) will only be half full and I won't really know why and I won't have any way to improve their overall happiness. It just makes the player feel somewhat helpless, like they can't make things better with hard work and craftiness.
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Game Mechanics:
Casino Chaos is a clicking festival. You'll click on a customer, then click on the location you want them to go. If they want a drink or to change tables, you'll click on a waitress or concierge and then click on the customer, and the staff member will head over there. Once they are done at their table and want to cash out, you'll click them and then click on the cashier. It sounds pretty simple, but can get very hectic as you progress.
Likewise, on the mini-games that occur between levels, you'll click to choose your number and click to spin the roulette wheel; you'll click to deal your cards and to hold or draw in BlackJack or 21, and so on.
In order to help you along, you can purchase upgrades in between levels and, in fact, you will need to do so in order to survive the coming levels. For instance, at one point, I was randomly spending money on restaurants, renovations and security upgrades, and I didn't notice that I had only 4 dealers when the following level required 5 dealers. I wondered how the game would handle it, but fortunately for me, two of the tables were for the same game, only one was a gold table and the other just a regular one. I placed my dealer at the gold table and simply managed who went to the table, keeping some people waiting in line a little longer than normal. Of all of the customers, only one got angry and I believe they left, although things were happening very quickly and I just saw an empty chair where she once was. Even with this, I had no problem reaching my goal and, quite frankly, until I got to the last 15 levels or so, I regularly hit the Expert Goal.
While I enjoyed my time with Casino Chaos, it's not my favorite time management game. Check out the demo for yourself to decide if it's for you.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
Minimum System Requirements:
Pentium 2.0 Ghz processor or faster, 1GB Ram, 32MB DirectX 9 Video Card, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX compatible sound cards, Display that supports 1023x768, 100MB hard drive space, keyboard, mouse |
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Test System:
Windows Vista, 2 GHz AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core Processor, 8GB RAM, Realtek High Definition Audio On-Board Sound, NVIDIA GeForce 8300 |
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Related Links:
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