by:	February 19, 2006

Every other friend of mine plays some sort of console game, but it seems like all of them are always playing some sort of card game on their computer with each other online. Silver Creek Entertainment figured this out, and since has made a game that hopefully would appeal to a wide variety of gamers. Silver Creek Entertainment, a company that works normally in distributing online card and board games over the internet, has brought three of their games, Hardwood Hearts, Hardwood Spades, and Hardwood Backgammon to the 360. Keep in mind that it isn’t best looking or best sounding game in the world, as it is mostly strictly just about the cards and nothing else. You can customize the tables a little, the backgrounds, and switch it up with your own music, but it mostly stays the same. One thing the game does that is definitely unique at point is it puts your Gamer Picture where your hand is, so that it is easier to tell who is who.

If you are buying Hearts, I would assume you would already know how the game works, if not, and you just so happen to buy the game because you have points to spare, there are plenty of tutorials that make things a lot easier. Before you start a game you can choose a good amount of options, for both single player games with the computer and Live multiplayer. The game’s single player works fine enough, but even compared to a lot of similar games on the computer, the AI can do some pretty cheap things to you, even if you are setting the difficulty low so you can get the hang of it. Also depending on the rules you set up it can feel a little to constricting, not even allowing you to foul up that much, giving you an edge, but sometimes an unwanted one, making it less challenging. A lot of times, it is best to just play with equally confused players on Live. As for Xbox Live Achievements, it can be pretty easy to get the achievements, as long as you understand the game in the first place.

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Hardwood Hearts is your barebones Hearts title, that if you play this constantly online on your computer, you might as well get it for your Xbox 360. There are plenty of people who play on Live, so you should have a new challenger at pretty much any time. The only down side, is it cost 400 points, or five bucks. You can definitely find better options on your computer for free, so unless you are feinting for a Spades title on your TV, or are hardcore into Hearts, you might want to look elsewhere.

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