Blackjack

Blackjack

released on Sep 01, 1977
by Atari

Blackjack

released on Sep 01, 1977
by Atari

Atari's Blackjack employs a variant of blackjack rules that is so extremely unfavorable to the player, that it would almost certainly never be seen in a real casino because no one would play with them. Splitting pairs is not allowed, and even more substantially, draws are won by the dealer (your bet is not returned to you if you and the dealer get the same card total and neither busts). This represents over a 10% house advantage. The player uses the paddle controller to enter a bet of up to 25 chips from an initial pot of 200. An up card is then presented, and the player decides whether to "hit" (accept another card) or stand. The player breaks the bank by obtaining a score of 1,000 chips, or is "busted" upon losing everything. Due to a glitch in the program, while a player is selecting among the options of what to do with the current hand by pressing left or right with the paddle controller, the amount of the player's next bet is modified even though it is defined by a variable that will not be visible until the end of the hand, requiring the player to carefully re-enter it at the start of every hand without pressing the button carelessly or risk wagering an unintended amount.


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Can I really be that harsh on a mfin atari 2600 launch title that seeks to replicate a simple gambling card game and nothing else? It's exactly what it says on the box, you want blackjack, you get blackjack. Only in the late 70's will you be able to find a card game that you play with a mfin paddle controller. It's pretty cool that this game supports up to four players though, even if its everyone vs the house rather than everyone vs each other. For the launch lineup this is probably one of the more social games in the bunch. You start with 200 chips and the chip counter resets at 1000 so I initially set that as my goal, but after getting to around 750 and then watching the house completely own me with enough back-to-back losses that I was back at basically square one again did I realize that huh yeah maybe this is why I shouldn't get a gambling addiction. Truly a cautionary tale from the dawn of console gaming that nobody seemed to heed, this game ran so Balatro and gacha games could crawl.

You don't even need to know the rules of Blackjack to see how this one is stacked against you.

It's Blackjack but with presentation somehow bad even by Atari 2600 standards.

Curiosidade Histórica(tm), parte 3.

Its bog-standard baby basic Blackjack thats kinda functional and thats about it. Outclassed by literally everything up to and including 'Casino', another Atari 2600 game thats usually in the Atari compilations.

The only reason to ever touch this is if you happen to own the Xbox One/Ps4 versions of the Atari Flashback collection as theres a fustrating as hell achievement/trophy incorporated into doing well on it. So yeah.