SNES Game Review: Vegas Stakes

  Seemingly everything in the 90's was put onto the Super Nintendo.  From movies to games, seemingly any star sports player having a video game, to casinos.  Yep, casinos were also a thing.  Super Caesars Palace and Vegas Stakes were the main games to this.  I played both of them in a 48-hour span because they really are just pick up and play, easy to navigate and deal with.  The first of the two I will review is Vegas Stakes.  This game is a bit of a nostalgic feature for me, as I also had it for the Game Boy and enjoyed it for my child years playing. Will that affect my rating?  Or how do I see this game in an overall aspect?

Game Cover of Vegas Stakes. Credit: Lukie Games

Positives:

1. Simple, easy pick up and play- There is no strategy to this.  Literally, all you do is pick up, play, enter your name, go to one of the four (later five) casinos in the game.  It's much like hot and cold in real life casinos.  You win, you lose, you win big, you lose big.  If you get bored with one, you go to the next casino and keep winning money.

2. The music- I actually thought the music was quite upbeat.  If you like a sorta techno hip-hop mix then this is for you in a lot of ways.  I liked it.  If it's not your forte, that is alright as well.

3.  The feel of Vegas- I think the glitz and glamour of Vegas is decently represented here. The lights of Vegas, the casinos, and the wheel and deal spirit are all there when you play Vegas Stakes.

Negatives:

1. Slim array of games- Usually at a casino there are a vast array of games, whether roulette, poker, video slots, etc.  There is a limited amount of any of those in Vegas Stakes.  Essentially it is poker, blackjack, slots, roulette, and craps.  I think the idea was to provide the basics of gambling in Vegas, but I feel like they could have put more into the game.

2. You get bored real quick- Yeah, this was going to come up with any casino game.  Yeah it's just the same thing over and over again.  You go to one casino, play the games.  Then another, and another.  Hence why this game is quick to get to the end point of beating it.

3. The sideshows- I didn't really know what to put here but there are various scenarios during the game where someone comes up, asks you to do something or invest or whatever it may be.  If you say yes, it can be good or bad.  The problem is to me it overwhelms the game rather than being fluid.  They would have done far better without the many sideshow scenarios playing a role.

Neutral:

1. Nostalgia- This was a fun game for me as a kid, mainly because as a kid I never thought of having 100,000 dollars, let alone ten million.  To me that was always fun to play as.  I think that is part of why I always get this game regardless of how many times I played it on SNES or on Game Boy.

In Final: All in all, to me Vegas Stakes is a fairly ordinary game.  To me, Super Caesars Palace is better than Vegas Stakes when I played both of them essentially back-to-back.  The nostalgic factor though for me will never go away.  In all honesty, it is always a cheap buy so you wouldn't be wasting much with it.  It's a merely average game that is worth the price of payment.
Overall Rating: 5.8 out of 10
All-Time Rating: 350th out of 721.