Nintendo Okie

Howdy:

• Solitaire is easy to understand
• Tutorials are very in depth

See Ya’:

• Game could be downloaded for free off the internet
• Few variations of solitaire mean there’s not a lot of variety in your choices.
• The cards are bland and boring

Is it possible to say anything about a solitaire game that hasn’t been said in the hundreds of years that solitair has existed?  5-in-1 Solitaire is another game in the line by Digital Leisure to bring casual puzzle and card games to WiiWare.  The question is whether or not the game is worth buying when it’s so readily available in every possible form on every possible platform.

5-in-1 Solitaire brings, as the title suggests, five different forms of solitaire together in one package for download on Nintendo’s digital game service.  Those forms of the single player card game are Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, Golf and Gaps.  Many of these games come free with anyone that’s purchased a PC before and all of these games are readily available on the internet for anyone that knows how to perform a Google search. 

Digital Leisure has been known for their bare bones presentation with their casual games on WiiWare giving you a solid performing game in a plain package and 5-in-1 Solitaire is no exception to that rule.  When you load up the game you create a profile and you’re given the option to choose which version of solitaire you would like to play.  Each of the games has multiple options that can be tweaked to create the solitaire game you want to play.  These tweakable options are an absolute must when dealing with a game of this type.  The one bright spot to each of the games are the tutorials.  Each game has an in depth tutorial that shows you the moves you can and can’t make, which if you’ve never played these versions of solitaire before is a very handy feature.  The tutorials will have you make moves that you can make, but it will also have you attempt moves that are illegal so that you get a handle on exactly what can and can’t be done. 

As the title suggests there are five versions of solitaire to choose from.  Klondike is the traditional version of solitaire that everyone first learns to play.  Klondike and Spider are variations on that theme.  Each of these games has you using the Wii Remote to point to the card you want to move and the location you want to move it to.  Golf and Gaps have you simply click on the card you want to move and it will automatically move to the appropriate location.  The controls are intuitive and very easy to get a handle on.  There are a good number of stats that the game keeps track of if you’re the type of person who really enjoys that sort of thing. 

Visually there is more that could have been done to spruce up the game and make it a worthy version of the game to have.  There are four bland card backs that can be chosen and there are no variations to the card fronts.  It would have been nice to have a number of options to make the card fronts different giving everyone something they would enjoy looking at for long periods of time.  There is not a lot going on with the game and the cards can sometimes be hard to distinguish from one another.

Solitaire is a hard sell on any platform.  There needs to be some compelling reason or a large variety of options to choose from to make a purchase worthwhile.  While the games themselves function flawlessly and they can be customized there are not many choices and you may become bored playing solitaire, which is usually a game you play when you’re bored and don’t have anything else to do.  These types of games are definitely more suited to a portable platform and I would recommend looking to the DSiWare version of 5-in-1 Solitaire if you want to make a card game worth purchasing.

Final Score: 2/5 Below Average      

Review copy of the game provided by Digital Leisure.