Casino Empire Preview

Developers have been making casino computer games for years, since the best of them can reproduce the thrill of stepping up to a poker table without the fear of losing your life savings. And Sierra's Hoyle team has been one of the most prominent players in the casino-game business over the years, having created popular casino and card games such as Hoyle Poker and Hoyle Casino 2001, among others. Now the Hoyle Casino team is moving on to something different: Casino Empires, a management game that will let you build and maintain your very own Las Vegas casino, but will also let you sneak in a quick round at the blackjack tables yourself.

We recently had a close look at Casino Empires, which is shaping up to be a colorful management game that will let you play through a single-player campaign or just fool around with a custom casino in the game's free-form sandbox mode. Casino Empires will have a total of eight different locations on the Las Vegas strip, and each of these will bear some resemblance to real-world casinos. The general goal of the campaign game will be to eventually take over and own all eight of the casinos, including the most expensive and most prestigious one, the Hoyle Casino. In the campaign game, you'll take control of the game's eight casinos one at a time by accomplishing certain goals, such as earning a certain amount of money or attracting a certain number of guests.

In both the campaign and sandbox modes, you'll be able to fill up your casino with game tables, bars, and slot machines by dragging and dropping them onto the floor. As you might expect, one of the most important aspects of the game will be making sure your customers are happy--and making sure they keep coughing up more money on the slot machines and at the tables, of course. Your customers will all have various personal needs--they'll need to eat, drink, rest, take trips to the bathroom, and down a couple of cocktails--and they'll also have a general enjoyment level, which you can keep up by decking your casino out with appropriate decorations. In the Egyptian-themed casino, for instance, you'll be able to buy palm trees to go with your slot machines. Since you'll eventually want a large, bustling casino with lots of happy gamblers, you won't necessarily be able to manage them all individually, but Casino Empires will have an event ticker at the top of the screen that will alert you to major events or give you general suggestions on how you can make your customers happier.

To satisfy your guests' needs, you can build different booths on the floor--like shops and restrooms--and also keep track of the way they're gambling using "overlay views," which helpfully color-code your customers and tables. For instance, to get a good sense of where your customers are putting their money, you can use the gambler overlay to quickly separate the high rollers (who will be color-coded green) from the stingy tourists (who will be color-coded purple). From there, you can raise the stakes at the tables where all the big-money players are hanging out and lower them at the tables where the low rollers are. You can also use a table overlay to get a quick sense of where your stakes are highest--those areas will be where you'll make most of your money, and they'll be the areas you'll want to take care of most.

Viva Las Vegas

Unfortunately, casinos aren't exactly the cleanest, safest, most law-abiding establishments in the world, as you'll find out in Casino Empires. If your guests take in a couple of martinis, they may loosen up, open their wallets, and start putting down some serious money at the tables, but if they overdo it at the bar, they might also stagger about the floor and even lose their lunch near the tables. Fortunately, you'll be able to hire on staff members, like janitors and caretakers, to clean up these accidents--if you don't, you'll find that the gamblers in the area will get very unhappy, very quickly. In addition hiring staff to clean up any "accidents" that occur, you'll also be able to hire waitresses and showgirls to keep your guests' food and drink needs fulfilled and keep them happy. You'll also be able to hire security guards to deal with the inevitable troublemakers.

Even though Las Vegas is a big town, there are only so many gamblers to go around, so you'll always find yourself in competition with rival casinos, and they don't always play nice. In both the single-player campaign and the sandbox mode, there will always be three kinds of casinos competing with each other: family-owned casinos, casinos owned by the Mob, and casinos run by corporate conglomerates. During the single-player campaign, you'll be able to try out all three kinds, though no matter which side you play as, you'll want to send spies to rival casinos in order to figure out how well they're doing and see if they plan to sabotage your business. Mob casinos might send over strongmen to break down your slot machines, while a family-owned casino might smuggle some minors (under the age of 21) into your casino to start a ruckus.

Fortunately, these sabotage attempts won't be the only things that go on in your casinos. If you bring in enough cash and accomplish enough goals, you can unlock better build options for your casino, including improved gambling table pits and huge statues to spruce up the place. You'll also be able to make additions to the exterior of your casino, including neon signs, roller coasters, and fireworks--all of which can make your casino more attractive to potential customers. Additionally, you'll occasionally get drawn into a gambling tournament, which will let you jump into a game of poker or blackjack that looks just like the previous Hoyle Casino games. You'll play with up to three other computer-controlled opponents who, like in the previous Hoyle games, will have different playing styles and different humorous comments to make. All your winnings from these tournaments will be transferred over to your holdings, and they can be used to buy improvements for the inside or outside of your casino.

Of course, it wouldn't be Vegas if the stars didn't come out to play. In addition to your regular customers, career slot jockeys, and timid tourists, your casino might also attract the presence of more than 20 "celebrities," famous characters who look and sound a lot like famous real-world stars. Celebrities will be marked with a moving star at their feet, and they can help draw in larger crowds. Casino Empires will also make good use of classic Las Vegas mood music. Expect to hear tracks from Bobby Darren and The Brian Setzer Orchestra, among others.

Will this colorful, humorous strategy game be the next game of choice for computer card sharks everywhere? We'll find out when Casino Empires is released this fall.