Cardangels

~ CARDANGELS ~

Fujicom

Super CD-ROM

1994

Cardangels asks that you take on a bunch of anime girls in four different card games: blackjack, poker, speed, and babanuki.

Blackjack and poker are... well, blackjack and poker, no real surprises there (except that the computer makes some really dumb decisions in blackjack). Speed can be the most enjoyable of the four, as you actually get to stay active instead of just sitting there staring at a hand, but it can also be frustrating: fiddling around with the I, II, and Run buttons just to plop your card on the correct pile doesn't cut it when the computer can toss its cards out there incredibly quickly; and once the computer gets on a roll, there's pretty much no stopping it. An unfair round of speed is still preferable to any experience with babanuki, however, as the latter simply has you and your opponent blindly picking from each other's hand, praying that you don't end up with the joker.

Anyway, after you've defeated a particular girl... SURPRISES! She undresses for you!

I bet you never saw that one coming.

As predictably perverted as Cardangels is, it's still a high-quality product. Its artwork is nice, its music is good, and it offers up forty-five girls to play against, meaning you probably won't finish it off all that quickly. One thing that must be mentioned is that, while you earn points for your wins, you never actually make any bets, so the "thrill" that comes with placing a huge wager in most card/casino-type games is nowhere to be found here. That's all right with me, though: girls over gambling any time, I say.