“Card Shark” attempts to weave the gameplay and the story as the Comte teaches Eugene the cons, and they pursue the truth behind the “12 Bottles of Milk” incident. The big benefit of video games, though, is that players don’t need the preternatural dexterity to perform the techniques. What players are doing is essentially learning the basics of card-based magic tricks. Players will need to know how to shuffle the cards deceptively and injog the correct sequences in “Card Shark.” (Devolver Digital) The longer it takes, the angrier an opponent gets and it can lead to calls of cheating and eventually death. Other times they have to stack the deck for the Comte. Sometimes players have to remember and signal the right suit and face card. All of this is done under some time pressure. They’re portrayed as minigames that require players to be perceptive and count cards. It’s almost like an Enlightenment-era “Paper Moon.”Īs Eugene, players learn 28 techniques (not all of them focus on cards) that help them through several trials and tribulations. He’s a trickster who goes on to call the boy Eugene and takes him under his wing in order to teach the youth how to cheat at cards. Although he’s dressed like a nobleman, the Comte is anything but that. The project takes place in 18th-century France and follows a mute serving boy, who ends up in the care of the Comte de Saint Germain. That makes “Card Shark” a standout in the world of video games. You’ll be the one tricked out of 20 bucks.Dozens of games feature testosterone-fueled heroes with guns as big as their muscles, but few projects star aristocratic con men. You’ve been warned: Card Shark won’t teach you to becoming a hustler. Frankly, it’s more a visual novel hiding its chapters behind frustrating and poorly designed minigames. It’s ironic that for a bunch of people selling you that you’re going to play a card shark, they’re the ones pulling the con. I’m even more upset by the fact that the developers and the publisher presented this game as a truly unique, innovative gameplay, which is flat out a lie. The bottom line is that I can’t recommend Card Shark. You never get to develop better skills either, as you only encounter a trick once anyway, so there’s no point in even trying to get better at them, if that was possible. Your successes or failures don’t impact the plot in any way, which makes the game feel even more pointless. Which brings me to another issue: there’s no connection between the gameplay and the story. So the experience becomes very quickly a chore, and the developers knew this, since they allow you to simply skip the gameplay after a while, and move on with the story. You often fail not because of a lack of skill, but because of a clunky design. What’s worse, the game makes a very poor job at explaining the tricks, which become increasingly annoying. And if you fail at any point during the sequence, you start over. You’re taught to press certain buttons in a certain order, remember how many cards of a certain color came out, or rotate the pad in a circular motion when a card is drawn, among other very basic and annoying gimmicks. The cards are only a theme, a background, for mechanics that have barely anything to do with an actual card game. If you think that you’re going to actually play card hands, that’s not it. However under the hood hides nothing more than a succession of very frustrating QuickTime events: mini games in which you must remember a series of button presses or controller inputs with very unforgiving precision. It’s true that the theme and the art direction both have undeniable appeal. Unfortunately, as it is often the case, the disappointment matched the expectations. Unfortunately, as it is Considering that Card Shark comes from the same people who made the excellent Reigns, I had high hopes for this game. Considering that Card Shark comes from the same people who made the excellent Reigns, I had high hopes for this game.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |