AD

Mini-Games in Some of Our Favourite Titles

I have fond memories of sitting down, and spending hours playing various mini-games in some of my favourite titles over the years. As technology advances, so too have the graphical and processing capabilities of the mobile gaming world. This has allowed for many of these mini-games to be recreated and played right on your phone or tablet.

If you’re curious you can find reviews for those. But for the purpose of this article, let's take a look at how a few of our favourite titles have approached mini-games.

Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2 (Poker)

Red Dead Redemption is one of my favourite franchises of all time. But I’ll admit, despite the fantastic stories, it was always fun to walk John Marston or Arthur Morgan into a saloon after a long day of hunting and gun fights, sit them down at a table and play some poker. The game, like everything else in Red Dead Redemption 2, was portrayed very accurately. Allowing players to do everything you would expect. Got dealt a bad hand? You can fold, or try and ride that trash to the end hoping your fortunes will change. Bluffing was also an option, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve won against the NPCs with a pair of threes. Luck however, is not really in the cards for the series’ protagonists.

Fable Anniversary (Coin Golf)

There are some pretty shady individuals you can find around the land of Albion. Most are bandits or assassins, but sometimes you come across someone with a more entrepreneurial spirit. These clever people have devised a series of games for people to play. In a tavern, located in the town of Oakvale, you can find one such man offering rounds of Coin Golf. The game is simple enough; the bar table has numerous mugs and glasses on it that you must navigate around to get the coin into the target circle. You can flick the coin with varying degrees of effort, making it go farther, or barely move across the table top. It is important to get the coin into the circle using as few moves as possible. Also, don’t flick the coin off the table, instant game over. Whenever I come across these mini-games, I refuse to stop until I have thoroughly proven I have mastered them.

Fallout: New Vegas (Slots)

The world of Fallout: New Vegas is filled with all kinds of games to play, blackjack, roulette, and slot machines to name a few. Blackjack is easily my favourite; but when the fate of the region seems to rest on your shoulders, I often find myself using the quicker slot machines. In order to play at any of the fine establishments across the wasteland, you will first need to see the cashier and purchase some chips. Once you have some winnings, visit the cashier again and you can easily convert them into any of the widely used currencies, such as bottle caps, NCR dollars, or even Legion coins. When it comes to slot machines, you are pretty much dealing with pure luck on a payout. But, they are very convenient, in that all you need to do is pull the arm to spin and watch the result.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Gwent)

The life of a Witcher is a dark and difficult path to walk, fortunately, when life gets Geralt down, he can always find someone to play a few rounds of Gwent with. Seriously, just about everyone you come across in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has their Gwent deck on hand. There are several faction decks you can use in this game, I prefer using the basic Northern Realms deck myself; the goal of Gwent is to use your cards strategically so that you have the highest score at the end of each round. Win two rounds in a row and the game is over. Easy right? Well sometimes. Players can use spy cards to increase the amount of cards in their hand, resurrection cards to bring a card back from the last round, or buff cards to double the value of a card category — I’ve even seen the NPC’s lose a round on purpose, just to crush me with superior resource management in the next round.

What did you think of these mini-games? Do you have a favourite that we missed? Let us know in the comments section.