52 out of 52 people found this review helpful.
"Blackjack, You Win!"
Date of Review: May 9, 2000
Golden Nugget 64 was the first gambling game for the Nintendo 64. My cousin told me about it and how he had rented it from Blockbuster several times, so I decided to rent it. We both thought it was great fun to gamble without losing money, so we decided to purchase the game. We would both end up playing this game until the wee hours of the morning.
Golden Nugget has many game to choose from; for example, Slots, Blackjack, Big 6, 5 Card Draw, 7 Card Stud, Roulette, Craps, and Texas Hold 'Em. For the most part, it is pretty realistic so you never end up losing large sums of money at one time, or make huge amounts either in a quick time span.
Storyline
There is absolutely no storyline to this game. However, there are goals that you want to reach. You start out as a "one diamond gambler." This means you are a rookie. Once you make $25,000, you are considered a novice gambler, and you receive two diamonds next to your name. At $100,000, you are thought of as an intermediate gambler, and have three diamonds. Now, if you are good, lucky, and fortunate enough to reach $10,000,000, then you are considered, as Homer Simpson would put it, Gamblor. You are a gambling god then. Reaching this amount of money is quite a task. I personally got to 3.5 million dollars, and I suppose I would have got higher, but I moved, and left the game to my cousin.
Gameplay
Obviously, this is where the game shines. You have many choices of ways to lose/win money. In the beginning, you start off with only $1000. To become a high roller, you can't be afraid of losing your thousand bucks and starting over again. Luckily, when you do lose your money, the bank just gives you another 1000 dollars to play with, without you ever having to pay them back(which is not realistic, but takes a huge burden off of your shoulders). To make a lot of money quick, you must really wage all of it on terrible odds. I have a few tips on how to make quick money, and when you pass this step, how to make huge amounts of money so you are on your way to ten million dollars!
Roulette
This is the game where you begin your fortune. For those who don't know, Roulette is a game where you bet on a number(amongst other things like color, even or odd, rows and columns, etc.) from 0, 00, to 36. A ball is placed on a spinning round table, and whatever space the ball falls in wins. The payoff for choosing the right number is 36 times your bet. So, when you first start off, put all 1000 dollars on one number consistantly. Now, this may take awhile, but when your number hits, you automatically have $36,000. From here, on to a game with better odds...
Blackjack
This is the game where you start to take control of your money. At each game, you have the choice of how high the stakes will be. Here, at Blackjack, you will want to start off with $5000 hands. By having a higher total than the house, you get two times what you put down. If you have blackjack with two cards, you get two and a half times your wager. Approximate odds of winning here overall is about 65%. Every rare moon, the house will go on a mean winning streak and take you for all you are worth. You will want to stay at this table until you reach about $150,000-200,000; setting the stakes accordingly.
7 Card Stud
This game is good for making a lot of money in just a few hands. Be warned however, you can lose huge amounts just as fast. Here, two cards are dealt to each player face down. Then, four more cards are dealt face up, so every one can see. The last card is, again, dealt face down. After each card is dealt, a betting process begins. The winner must have the highest hand out of the seven cards. The computer will just about always call your bluff if you do choose to bluff. You will want to set the stakes at around 10-20 thousand per hand. Once you reach about $500,000, then raise the stakes to around 20-50 thousand per hand.
Texas Hold 'Em
In Texas Hold 'Em, each player is dealt two cards face down. The dealer then deals out four or five cards(sorry, I can't really remember), each one at a time. These cards are shared by all the players. This game, when the stakes are set at $50,000 can become very costly, most likely the most expensive in the game. Some hands you can win upwards of $600,000, and sometimes you can lose up to $300,000. Stake settings are the same as I described in 7 Card Stud.
Once you have about $1,000,000, then play high stakes games or games that you can win easily at like Texas Hold 'Em and Blackjack, respectively. Believe me, getting one million dollars is much harder than described here. This is just the way I was able to do it. Every once in a great while, you are able to get lucky in Roulette, and place $50,000 dollars on a number and it hits; that is automatically about four million dollars.
One thing I really didn't like about this game is that once you get to 10 million dollars, the game retires your character and you go into the hall of fame. You get to keep playing(with your four diamonds), but you go all the way back down to $1000. You aren't able to waste all of your money once you reach Gamblor stage.
Slots are pretty fun, but they get really old really quick. It is pretty hard to win at them. Craps is fun. However, this game is pretty tough to win at, and so I ended up betting on lower levels, so I usually wouldn't make very much. Big 6 is a game where a large wheel is spun, and it lands on a certain odds(like 10x your money, 20x, etc.). Before the spin, each player bets on what odds will be landed on. If you win, you get the wager times the odds won. 5 Card Draw is good if you want to play safe and win mediocre amounts of money. You only lose small bits of money here. My personal favorites are Roulette, Blackjack, and Texas Hold 'Em.
This game is quite fun. It is good for those of you who want to go out and do some gambling, but don't want to lose any money. It is also good for minors who can't gamble yet :) It's replay value is good because every one wants to be Gamblor, so we all play until we get to 10 million bucks. You become addicted to it... Uh-oh! I just realized I have a gambling problem! :)
Graphics/Sound
... Or lack thereof. The game has few graphically strong areas, but few are needed. So it evens out. People really don't need to see strong graphics just to gamble. It is nice seeing all the games in nice 3D though.
Each game has its own sounds. Slot machines to Roulette, to 5 Card Draw. In the background, you will hear the murmurs of "other people" in the casino.
Overall
Overall, this game is pretty decent. It is very addictive and will appeal surprisingly to all ages(unless parents don't want to expose their kids to this). But I suggest renting this game first to see if you really like it enough to buy it. I have seen this game floating around some stores for only about $20, so it is a good buy.
