Others say...

"Hoyle needs to program a shuffle"
More games and excellent competition, however since I have owned
Hoyle 2003-2008, I feel that an oncall shuffle is required to
reduce computer control as to outcome of the games whether it
is Bridge or Poker or Cribbage. When playing with people in a sit
down game my percentages run much higher.....please introduce a
shuffle button.
Chief McCurry
USN retired
6 submarines
30 Years

"What a Blast!"
Although I've never played this game myself, I gave it to two people (both men over 65) for Christmas this year and have heard tons of wonderful comments about it already. They LOVE not only the card games - both are card junkies - but also the comraderie from their fellow virtual players. They feel like they are playing with friends and can't stop thanking ME for the gift!

"Hoyle Cards Games 2008"
If you enjoy Hearts this is not the software for an enjoyable game. I play to unwind and relax with winning great on occasions. Heartwood Hearts is much better. Hoyle Battleship is fine (on another CD)...I'm not a diehard player of anything and only play for relaxing...enough brain work during the day. Save your money.

"Great Game! Still has bugs..."
I've been playing card games under the Hoyle name since the early 90s. the current versions are a far cry better than the originals (I think you might have had to put the floppy disk in the computer to get the game to play... definitely old school...)

Anyways, I'm VERY happy that this is finally supported on the Mac platform, since any of the other card game programs for the Mac seem to be about the same level of graphics that the early 90s Hoyle card games had when I played them on a Tandy 1000... The interface is a whole lot more fun than the Masque games that are available for the Mac.

I had to downgrade it to only 4 stars, though because there are several significant bugs in the underpinnings. Hoyle Bucks do not work in Cribbage (which is a real bummer for me, since that's my favorite game). Cribbage statistics are also not accrued. This has been a problem since the 2005 AND 2006 iteration of the game (played on a Dell before switching to Mac), so you'd think that they would have fixed it by now. And every time I start a new session and play the solitaire game "Penguin" it gives me the same deal, which since it's a fairly easy hand to win, I don't mind the extra [...] Hoyle Bucks for winning it every time. Hm... maybe I should start timing myself on it and competing with myself to see how quickly I can win the same hand.... At least all the subsequent games are different. I have contacted Encore's support with questions about these bugs, but so far have gotten no response.

The video poker and video blackjack are fairly entertaining new additions.

Overall, an excellent computer card game. Perhaps Hoyle should find a new programmer, though. One with some attention to detail this time?


"Idiosycrasies."
Hello,
In general this seems to be a good card game disc. The graphics are good and the responses are good. I will admit that I am not deeply into PC card games, mostly Bridge and some solitaire variations. In these there are some idiosycrasies. In Bridge you cannot exit the card game upon completion of a rubber using the red X. If you call up a new Bridge game, then you can exit using the red X. A minor thing, but why?
In some of the solitaire games, Penguin for example, one cannot tell which suit a card is on some of the cards (aces for example are all bad) because the card stack covers too much of the card. This is not only inconvenient, but introduces a difficulty not intended. Before I changed to a standard deck ALL of the suits were covered!
Les W.