Recommended for hard-core fans of backgammon with friends on X-Box Live.

User Rating: 5.8 | Hardwood Backgammon X360
By mrn71 | Review Date:
As someone who has played Backgammon for over 10 years, I found this game very tiresome. Gameplay: The game is a barebones adaptation of the game and presents a passable interface to roll the dice and move your pieces. While adequate, the AI on the game is incredibly uneven - most times it leaves its pieces wide open in the most vulnerable of positions and then sometimes makes these moves which turn out to be brilliant because of the dice rolls. Makes the 'streak' achievements a bit tough - my recommendation is to play 3-point matches, to compensate for the luck of the AI, though you may have to play longer but not if you use the doubling cube wisely. Or you could take your chances with finding a good Xbox Live opponent. If you find a couple, make friends with them and you've got good times ahead of you.

Graphics: These are passable for this pricepoint - you get a choice of backgrounds and boards/pieces/dice which is about all I expect. A nice touch is the uneven way the pieces lines up when you move them off the board.

Sound: Horribly dull on the effects. Some of the background themes do give you some ambient sound to give you a relaxing atmosphere - or you could just play some music of your choice like I do.

Value: Considering it only goes for $5, I suppose you can't expect any better. Maximize the value by using multiplayer. Most of the achievements are easy to reach - you can get 4 of them in the first hour or so and 10 of them in 3-4 sessions.

Final Thoughts: The Backgammon game on Microsoft's Zone.com is superior to this in every way and offers much better chance of finding a good opponent. I'm hoping Microsoft ports some of those games to X-Box one day or a company like Hoyle makes a X-Box version that is cheap like this one, but keeping the gameplay.

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