Neo Dragon's Wild review by Sweater Fish

When I first started getting into the Neo Geo Pocket I quickly figured out that there were two major categories of games on the system. First, was there was the category of great games from a variety of genres: fighting, puzzlers, action, sports, or what have you; second, and infinitely less interesting, there was the casino games. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with casino games per se, I've got nothing against gambling and I've played in my time, with greater or lesser amounts of enthusiasm, many casino games on many platforms, the Neo Pocket casino series, on the other hand...

The main problem, really, was and is that each full-price casino cartridge only contains one game. Yep, when that title says "Pocket Casino Series: Neo Dragon's Wild," you're not gettin' no pocket casino, you get one game from the "series." In this case video poker. Other games include various slot machine sims, blackjack/21, and a couple others that aren't officially part of the "Pocket Casino Series."

As far back as 1980 with the Intellivision, it was obvious to video game programmers that casino simulators should sold as packages with two or three or more games in one. Somehow, though, SNK/Dyna got it into their heads that they should divide everything up and sell them separately. Ridiculous from a gamer's point of view, but those individual games are selling pretty well even at above normal prices (in Japan, at least), so maybe they're onto something. Ah well, I suppose the concept of "good business" wins in the end.

Still reading, eh? Then I assume you're either an incurable video poker addict who needs a fix no matter what the cost or that you can get a good deal on the game. If you fall into one of those two categoriess, you're actually in luck with Neo Dragon's Wild since it's a pretty good video poker simulator.

First things first, though, this is not a poker sim; poker is a game that old men play on Sunday nights, they leave their wives at home to go smoke cigars and drink stale beer and bullshit the night away over a slow-paced game of cards, it's an American past-time; either that or poker is a game played in the back rooms of sleazy bars and pool halls, a game where card-sharks coolly eye each other over huge piles of money and watches and deeds to houses, that, too, is an American past-time. No, what we have here is *VIDEO* poker, another beast altogether; basically poker for one player, it's just like poker, but with all the cunning and skill removed.

What you get in Neo Dragon's Wild is a basic game of 5-card draw poker with one draw. You place your bet, five cards are dealt, you look them over to see which ones you want to hold, discard the rest and take new cards in their place. If you're holding two pair or better at the end, you win somewhere between 1 and 200x your original bet depending on how good your hand is. It's as simple as that.

Well, not quite *THAT* simple, there's a few bonus games, too, to shake up the action.

The most common is the double-or-nothing game. Every time you win a hand you have the opportunity to double your winnings by playing a game where you're presented with five face-down cards and have to quess whether each one will be higher or lower than '7.' If you guess right, your winnings are doubled, then 4x, 8x, 16x and, finally, 50x. If you guess wrong, of course, you lose it all.

Then there's the jacks-or-better bonus game, every time you end a game holding just one pair of Jacks or better the little "J-B" counter on the side of the screen counts down, when it reaches zero you get a free hand. Woo-hoo.

And, of course, there's the Dragon Bonus bonus game. As the game's title indicates, dragons are wild in this game; if you win a game holding one in your hand, you get to play the Dragon Bonus game. The Dragon Bonus is a simple slot machine game that can give you up to 10x your winnings if you hit the jackpot.

Dyna also included a few nice options; for instance, there's a bookkeeping feature that keeps detailed records of every hand that's been dealt, percetages, and all that stuff. There's also a glossary of poker-related terms included and you have the option of saving up to five games-in-progress.

You get to choose between the Simple Mode--just the video poker without any of the fancy mini-games--and Regular Mode. There's also a Pro Mode that becomes available after 3000 games that gives you more control over the game's settings and lets you play a different double-or-nothing game where you have to guess whether the next card will be higher or lower than the last.