Parlour Games
System: SMS
Release Date: May 1988
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Parlor Games
Looking for a small collection of parlor games? Look no further than Parlour Games! We’ve got billiards, darts, and World Bingo in store for you with several variations of the first two.
Starting with billiards. You can play a basic game which tasks you with sinking balls into the pocket, earning a point with each ball sunk. A nine ball game, which means you need to sink balls in order from 1 through 9. A five ball game, which is basically eight ball, but with less balls. And finally rotation, which awards points based on the number on the ball sunk. You control the power of your shot and the amount of follow, draw, and English. Each game can be played alone, with other players, or against the computer.
Darts puts you in front of a typical dart board. You can play 301 or 501, which every number you get subtracts from your score and the goal is to reach 0 exactly. Round the Clock tasks you with throwing from 1 to 10 in order. Double Down is a more convoluted style of Round the Clock that I wasn’t really interested in trying. You control the power of your throw and the release point of the throw. You have to be careful about when you press buttons, or else you’ll get a bad throw and curse the game.
World Bingo is a super convoluted game that had you betting money on a bingo card that has numbers from 1-25. You then go to a slot machine that spins a number and either a happy face, which places the number on the card, or a sad face, which does nothing. You can spin numbers on the cards to try and give yourself a favorable order, but this is purely a game of chance.
Graphics: 2.0
Graphics are serviceable.
Sound: 1.0
Music wasn’t very interesting or entertaining.
Gameplay: 3.0
Gameplay in billiards and darts were fine. World Bingo was super weird.
Difficulty: 2.5
Playing the billiards on professional level means they might only miss one or two shots. The AI takes forever on some occasions to decide on a shot.
Fun Factor: 2.0
This was an alright game funwise. The pool is probably about as good as Side Pocket. The addition of darts is pleasant. World Bingo was duuuumb.
Overall Grade: 2.1
Parlour Games earns a C. It’s as average as can be. I wouldn’t really go out of my way to play it unless I wanted to try darts.