Admittedly I don't fully understand the game of Cribbage, however I was able to grasp the basics enough to review the game. What I did realize was that the graphics were decent enough for the wooden board, making it simple to count pegs and see the entire setup. The display also offered plenty of room for showing each of the players cards. Unfortunately there was also plenty wrong with the game. Let's take a closer look at the gameplay and setup.
As I mentioned the graphics are decent enough for the game, although a bit clunky. However, I don't think they really needed to be anything spectacular considering it's a card game. Here's a look at the card and gameboard display:
You'll also notice that just like the original game the pegs are multi-colored for easy viewing and the wooden game board is setup in the same manner as if you were playing the game in non-electronic form. It was a little odd to see the cards only partly show up, but this allowed for the full board to be displayed and the symbols and numbers are all still fully visible which makes it manageable.
The game also displays announcements when appropriate. For example if you underscore your hand a message will pop up letting you know that you've underscore.
Cribbage for Blackberry also offers the ability to "customize" your card backs with 11 different choices. I'm a big fan of personalization and while it's a simple step it does give a new look every now and again to the game.
The computer opponents proved worthy of a challenge. Again I'm not a pro at Cribbage but in 10 games I only managed to win two matches and even those matches were by a slim margin.
With all of that being said I learned to play online and when playing the game I noticed a few issues, for one it's hard to tell who the dealer is if you're returning to a game which is an obvious important part of playing Cribbage. There are also no skunks in the game and you can't play in portrait mode. Because of these issues the game was rated as average. If I realized those as a new cribbage player I'm sure seasoned experts will find more issues with the game.
Cribbage isn't really my cup of tea and the missing features on Magmic's version of the game really didn't help matters. I did like the number of AI players I could take on at once and the fact that the board is optimized to fit on the screen with the players cards always in sight, however too many features were missing to make this Blackberry App World game worth the $4.99 price tag.
A nice attempt that falls short due to the missing options that should be included in any Cribbage game.