Reviewed: February 14, 2003
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Silver Creek Software

Developer
Silver Creek Software

Released: January 27, 2003
Genre: Cards
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

8
8
4
9
8.4

System Requirements

Silver Creek Entertainment was founded on the premise of creating great card games, and with previous releases like Hearts, Spades, Euchre, and two previous releases of Solitaire, they have already proven themselves with some highly polished entertainment titles. Hardwood Solitaire III is their most ambitious and high-tech offering to date, offering numerous features and lots of scalable special effects to tailor the gameplay to the power of your computer.

Check out these features:

• More than 85 variations of Solitaire
• Interactive help, hints, undo, and redo features
• Create your own unique character and track your stats
• Stunning 3D graphics and special effects that use modern hardware
• Relaxing environments, backgrounds, ambient sounds, and MIDI file support
• Create your own multimedia environments and share them with others

The first thing to do is create a player by entering your name and choosing an Avatar, a physical icon to represent yourself. You can choose from six fantasy characters like a princess, jester, wizard, etc. Then you can tweak their backgrounds and colors to get things just the way you want. It’s certainly not as advanced as the “Facemaker” tool in Sierra’s Hoyle card games, but it gets the job done. You really don’t see your avatar that much during the game. The entire purpose of creating a character is to track your wins and losses and game preferences in a setting where multiple family members will be playing this game.

Now it’s time to pick your game from the massive list of Solitaire variations. You can filter this lengthy list by picking from your favorite games, most recently played, and the most popular. As you highlight each game you get a preview of the game layout and some stats in a bar graph form that detail the length, skill, and chance of winning. You can also get a synopsis of the game, check out your stats (if you have played this variation previously) and even watch a demo of the computer playing it.

Once you have picked your game the control is simple. You can pick your cards and move them around by clicking and dragging them to the desired destination. Some variations allow you to right-click the card and have it auto-play into the default location. This can be both a blessing and a curse. In games like Pyramid where you are trying to pair cards for a sum of 13 you may want to match a card from the pyramid with the card you just turned over. If another combination exists this right-click feature may not pick the one you wanted.

Another feature that may prove detrimental to gameplay is the “auto-play” that will automatically play some of the more basic moves for you. If you are playing Klondike and have the Ace of Spades showing and turn over a 2 of Spades it will fly right on over to the stack. This is a wonderful feature, especially near the end of a winnable game where the last 10-20 cards will play-out, but sometime in the middle of a game you may need to play that card elsewhere for strategic reasons. You always have the option to undo, redo, and manually override the system, but often you take these auto-play moves for granted and can possible lose a game if you aren’t careful.

Chances are you won’t know the rules or gameplay for every variation of Solitaire that comes in this package. You can learn the basics by watching the demo and there is an amazing help system that you can slide out from the right edge of the screen. This is a wonderful interactive tool to learn the game. You can click on hotspots to pop-up definitions of new terms or highlight various areas of the playing field in gold sparkles.

During your game you can click on the HINT button to have the game indicate the next best move. Often, this will be something totally obvious and you will smack yourself for missing it and other times it may lead you into a dead end. That is perhaps my one and only complaint. The game will not tell you when you have reached the end of your possible moves. One very helpful feature I remember from older Solitaire games is the ability to have the game tell you right from the start if the game can be won. Games like Pyramid “know” from the initial deal whether they can be won or not. If your four 9’s are at the top of the pyramid and your 4’s are near the top of the deck you aren’t going to win. It would be nice to have the option to click a button and know if the game you are about to play can be won.

You will probably want to visit the Options menu and tweak all the graphical settings and special effects. If you have an OpenGL compliant video card you will enjoy plenty of extra effects like transparent cards, sparkle mouse trails, and swinging cards as you move the columns. There is even a victory fireworks display when you win the game and the cards will float around and exit to the side of the screen.

You can choose from a limited amount of card decks, but you can also download other designs or create your own. You can choose from the classic style cards or the ones with the fancy medieval designs that resemble the avatars. You can even choose from an assortment of decorative designs for the back of the cards. The one thing that surprised me was the incredible detail on these cards that made them look like hi-res scans - perhaps they were. The edges look a bit worn and dirty giving this game an ultra-realistic look about it.

The game comes with a few background environments you can choose from. These can be as simple as wallpaper or as complicated as a multimedia package with unique sound and visual effects. You can add little touches like bubbles, snow or rain to liven up the playing field.

Silver Creek had the right idea when it came to music for this game; they just got the wrong format. It’s 2003 and the format of choice is of course, MP3. Hardwood Solitaire III only offers support for MIDI files, and while I “used” to have a few hundred megs of those lying around 5-7 years ago, they have long been replaced with a few gigs of MP3’s.

The game does feature a wonderful interface for navigating your hard drive and creating custom playlists, assuming you have your own collection of MIDI files. The game even comes with a few token MIDI files that fit the various background themes. Of course, the easiest thing to do is simply disable the in-game MIDI music and have your MP3 or CD player program running in the background.

I won’t even attempt to put an hour value on this game. Honestly, if you enjoy Solitaire enough to the point where you buy this game then you will be playing it nonstop for months and possibly years to come; at least until Hardwood Solitaire IV arrives. I found myself playing this game while waiting “on hold” on the phone or chatting in ICQ.

You might be asking yourself, “Why should I pay to play something that my computer already has on it for free?” Well, that limited edition of Klondike buried in your Windows OS is a joke when you compare it to the sheer magnitude of this title. This is a Solitaire game of epic proportions that no one should miss. Don’t take my word for it. Download your free demo and see for yourself just how cool a card game can be.