Original Release: Midway, 2002, PS2/Gamecube/Xbox

A simplified soccer title with huge hits that wouldn’t fly in real life, RedCard is nevertheless more restrained than some of Midway’s other sports titles

RedCard 2003 (Gamecube, Midway, 2002)

Where to Buy: Amazon

How to Emulate: coming soon!

Review by: C. M0use

Midway carved out a niche of over-the-top arcade sports titles that was headlined by NBA Jam and NFL Blitz (to the point it formed a special “Midway Sports” division), but none of their other experiments really caught on the way those two did. RedCard 2003 was their “blink and miss it” shot at doing something like this for soccer, but I think it ended up being an obscurity due to serving kind of an odd niche rather than being a bad game.

First of all, it’s more “toned down” and tilted toward the “realistic sim” side than their usual sports outing. It’s really pretty much a straightforward arcadey and simplified soccer game, just with the ability to get away with some level of violent hits, superhuman “turbo boost” sprints and a basic “super shot” mechanic. I kinda feel like it’s more comparable to what Tecmo Super Bowl did with football than how Blitz or Jam were handled.

It’s also a pretty good game overall, though definitely pitched more to two-player contests and casual one-off single player games than offering any sort of management or season depth. There is a limited “season” mode of sorts but the only purpose is winning games in the finals to earn points that can then be used to unlock new teams and stadiums (including the game’s more silly aspects). Other than that it’s pretty much two-player and random casual games.

Overall it’s a more professional presentation that doesn’t adopt the sort of Mt. Dew Lightning Extreme approach the Blitz games took, bringing in former BBC commentators Simon Brotherton and Chris Kamara to do sober play-by-play and including only official national teams with their early ’00s roster of players. Replicas of actual arenas are also used complete with appropriate crowd chants and the players speaking to each other in their native language. It’s actually a pretty impressive level of aesthetic polish for something meant to be more of a simple and arcadey throwaway title.

The gameplay is also mostly solid, feeling more like a slower-paced hockey game than a detailed soccer sim. There are a few bits that could use some improvement, though, namely sometimes iffy passing (that doesn’t always follow where you’re pointing) to goalkeepers having random bouts of being inexplicably bad.

And then there’s the over-the-top violence element: basically you can get away with hard slide kicks and shoulder tackles to a great degree, and players can also charge a Double Dragon jump kick to the face. You have limited turbo sprints (complete with Flash lightning effects) and also limited ability to pull off a slow-mo super shot. Another gameplay hink is in how the ref calls these, which seems to be totally random. You’ll get away with like 90% of the violent moves, but every once in a while someone catches a card for one seemingly at random.

Overall, RedCard kinda addresses an odd niche, but one that actually worked for me personally. It’s accessible to people who aren’t really fans of the sport but enjoy a more arcadey soccer title, but with touches of authenticity aimed more at serious fans. It’s pretty fun to play and nice to look at, some hinks here and there aside. I’m guessing big fans of the sport didn’t find it to have nearly the depth they were looking for, however, and even if the game is in your wheelhouse it doesn’t have a tremendous amount of stuff going on to keep a single player occupied.

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Original Release: Konami, 2012

A fairly standard Konami 3×5 with a Western theme that kinda calls to mind their old Laserdisc arcade game Badlands more than the TV show

Rawhide (Konami, 2012)

Review by: C. M0use

Rawhide is one of Konami’s typical 3×5 games from the around-2010 era, but it made an unusually good first impression on me by giving up 10 free spins on my literal very first play and then adding a couple more good sequences on my first session.

Despite all that I didn’t walk away winning anything, but I did cycle a couple hundred in bets on the ol’ players card for a total cost of just a couple bucks in actual loss. Rawhide is one of the last of the true penny slots to be found hanging on at live casinos, with a 1 cent minimum per line at your choice of 1 to 25 lines.

The only RTP listing I can find for it puts it at 96.03%, which is a little below the usual Konami threshold for the time but still on the high side on the whole. This does seem to be predicated on chasing free spins to at least some degree; you get an automatic 2x multiplier on wins during these and can hit symbols that increase the multiplier, so you may need to catch up on some losses by hitting a lucky sequence of this nature. But as my test play sessions demonstrated (and as is true with most other Konami titles of the time), hitting free spins isn’t all that rare of an experience.

I don’t know if it unseats Lotus Land or China Shores as my budget favorites for grinding long play sessions, but it’s up there as a choice if you see it around. You can sit and play for a long time on a little money, pardner can get a whiskey or two in from the nice cocktail girl and still possibly come out ahead on the whole.

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Keep them dogies rollin’

Original Release: Mud Duck, 2000, PlayStation
Other Releases: PS3/PSP (2010)

A simple but arcadey air hockey title with colorful characters and super moves

Air Hockey (PS1, Mud Duck, 2000)

Where to Buy: Amazon

How to Emulate: coming soon!

Review by: C. M0use

Just from glancing at screenshots you’d think this was part of the (in)famous “Simple Series” of budget games, but it’s actually a similar concept from a different publisher (Simple had its own entry in this genre called “The Table Hockey”). It’s a very basic air hockey game that attempts to spice things up with late 90s-early 00s Capcom arcade game style presentation and a bunch of Arkanoid-like power-ups that randomly appear on the playfield.

The focus is definitely on two-player action, with a rudimentary single-player mode thrown in just to have something there. You pick from four characters, who seem to differ only in their set of “super moves” that can be called upon: budget Captain Commando/Cloud Strife guy, weird androgynous kid, sexy space pirate who competes in tight spandex, and of course, Diesel Man. If playing by yourself, your only option is to face the other three and then take on some “final boss” alien who will somehow annihilate the Earth if he wins the match.

Despite being a “late” PS1 release (at the turn of the century, just before the PS2 launch) this does not seem to support the DualShock and forces you to play with the D-pad, and the base movement feels a little too slow and clunky to keep up with the puck. Instead of having the free-floating paddle physics of some air hockey games, you press the O button to swipe at the puck with a power shot. You also have a “special meter” that builds up with contact and eventually allows you to rip off super moves, some of which are essentially unstoppable auto-goals.

The whole thing feels like it was going more for “party game” than precision, what with the controls feeling inadequate to keep up with the action sometimes and the Mega Man Soccer-esque super shots. This is added to by the power-ups that appear randomly, which you collect if you knock the puck into. Well, only some are strictly power-ups … for example there’s one that makes the puck invisible, which really doesn’t help anyone. Some of the more useful ones freeze the opponent in place temporarily, put a one-shot barrier over your goal, and give you a giant paddle.

It’s really not bad for a casual thing, in which you’ll basically focus more on outpacing the opponent with heaps of goals than actually playing some sort of precise and skilled air hockey game. Has decent music too. Unlike many retro games it also still seems to go for cheap these days.

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Original Release: IGT, ????

A 3×5 slot from IGT that’s from the mid-00s somewhere but has a rather early 90s art style, Totally Puzzled welcomes your pennies but will also totally eat them up

Totally Puzzled (IGT, ????)

Review by: C. M0use

Totally Puzzled is another of those old slots that it’s hard to find info about online, but it’s part of IGT’s “Perfect for Pennies” series that was put out in the mid-to-late 00s so I’d guess it’s around 15 to 20 years old. Can still be found on casino floors, though, thus the review.

It’s another of the last of the true surviving penny slots, with a minimum bet of just 1 cent for the center line, and your choice of covering up to 20 lines at various denominations. It’s another simple 3×5 game typical of the early period of video slots, where the central “feature” is just landing three special symbols to get free spins. But this one has a win multiplier during free spins that can be upped when you land question mark symbols (which double as wilds), which provide you either with a random multiplier increase or some more free spins.

The price you pay for all this seems to be tiny and infrequent line wins, even in the bonus spins the game seems pretty tight. I don’t see a published RTP but you seem to be hanging in for like the “perfect storm” of circumstances where you jack the multiplier up during a bonus spin set then just happen to land a big win toward the end of the sequence … anyway, the long and short of it is that it seems like a volatile game. But certainly cheap to play if you’re just looking for the lowest minimum bets.

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Original Release: IGT, ????

A 3×5 in the style of prior IGT penny slots, but the theming seems to be inspired by Konami’s run of similar Asian-themed games around 2010

Lotus Flower (IGT, ????)

Where to Buy: Available in “just for fun” offline form as part of the IGT Slots Bombay collection

Review by: C. M0use

I can’t pin down a release date for Lotus Flower but IGT’s janky web site no longer bothers to list it, the cabs in live casinos are obviously old and I see at least one video of it on YouTube from 12 years ago, so I’d guess this was basically a follow-on to Konami’s successful 3×5 line of Asian-themed games from around 2010 or so.

Aside from the pumpin’ Asian techno music that plays constantly (instead of the usual little snippets with each spin of this period), the other noteworthy thing about it is that it’s one of the last of the true penny slots hanging in there on casino floors – you can minimum bet just the center line for as little as 1 cent, with granular control up to a max of 20 lines.

The payout style also reflects Konami’s 3x5s, centered on the simple feature of getting three lily pads to trigger free spins, which can then re-trigger. I can’t say how often these pop, as I didn’t manage to hit them, but it does seem like regular line wins are tiny to nonexistent. I can’t find a reliable RTP published for this but a small sample size of playtime suggests its definitely more volatile than the Konami titles it’s based on.

Still, with the paucity of real penny slots these days you might get into a “beggars can’t be choosers” scenario with something like this in a casino if that’s what you’re looking for, in that case it does have the lowest possible minimum bets and it is simple and aesthetically pleasing at least.

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Original Release: MumboJumbo, 2006, PC
Other Releases: Mac (2007), Nintendo DS (2008), Blackberry (2009)

No gambling aspect to this one, instead you challenge 60 Slingo levels with the occasional competitive boss battle

Slingo Quest (DS, MumboJumbo, 2008)

Where to Buy: Amazon

How to Emulate: coming soon!

Review by: C. M0use

I’ve never seen Slingo in my many roamings of live casinos, but Wikipedia says it was at a few select locations in Vegas and Atlantic City at one point or another. It seems to have found more purchase at online casinos, but even with those I don’t think you run across it too often.

If you want to play it just for fun, I guess this is as good a choice as any. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, as the title intimates it’s a combination of bingo and slots. You get a standard 5×5 bingo card full of random numbers, but instead of the numbers being called out, each vertical column gets assigned its own slot reel. This game gives you 20 spins to clear each of its levels, which doesn’t involve clearing the entire card (often doesn’t happen); you just have to clear a certain pattern of darkened tiles to move on to the next level. There are “achievements” you can replay each level for, though, or just to score attack it.

The single-player “quest” mode offers 60 levels in total, which go through a series of “islands” in which new rules are introduced in an attempt to freshen the game up a bit. For example, on one island the final four spins cost a sizable chunk of your score, unless you’ve previously found free spins. On another, devils can randomly be uncovered that take a chunk of your points, unless you’ve previously uncovered a cherub that wards them off.

Every few levels there is also a boss battle, where you take turns spinning against the CPU to complete a card. I thought this was going to be the creative highlight of the game, but it turns out you just face the same pirate every time.

And as you’d expect from the game being a combo of slots and bingo, it’s quite random and reliant on luck. There is just a skosh of skill element as you get bonus points for moving faster, and there’s an occasional strategic decision about what number to mark off. But really, every game (including the boss battles) pretty much comes down to timely “wilds” appearing that allow you to just pick off remaining numbers of your choice.

The game is OK and decently made, just not much of a concept. Might scratch a slots or bingo itch at a low cost, but other than that I don’t see much use for it. Also has kinda annoying and repetitive music.

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Original Release: IGT, 2015

Watch your money drain to the tune of a stop-and-start bootleg Rock Lobster

Lucky Larry Lobstermania 2 (IGT, 2015)

I’d heard good things from people about the original Lobstermania, so this caught my eye on a recent casino trip. Maybe the original game is different? Because the sequel just felt like a very high volatility money sink that doesn’t even bother to give you the most rudimentary animations or sounds to keep you interested.

It presents as a “penny” slot but the minimum bet you’ll probably see at machines is 60 cents. That covers all lines, it’s a simple 4×5 game that seems to be oriented on chasing the three jackpots. The game’s listed RTP is 96.5%, which is generally about as high as slots gets, but I assume that’s predicated on people hitting the very rare jackpots and getting huge returns to offset a lot of losing. These alter in value with your bet but the biggest one ranges from 5k to 250k credits.

At a short brush the game just feels like it has a ton of dead spins and eats your money fast. I had no luck getting to any bonus features with a reasonable amount of spend and had to go online to check them out. It does offer stacked wilds that can give you a pretty big individual line win here and there, and wins can also receive a random multiplier of up to 5x. And when you land three of the Lobstermania symbols (in some fussy positions) you get a situation similar to Konami’s 3×5 games where you pick either a relatively small instant payout or to go for it with some amount of free spins. Any of these can end up giving you a pretty big win to offset all that general losing, but the trick is in getting to it without dumping too much of your money first.

My other criticism of the game is it really tries to offer no eye or ear candy at all (other than little chunks of Rock Lobster), just shuttles you through its low-effort lobster world as fast as possible. So I’d say this is only for someone specifically looking for high volatility in an uncomplicated game with multiple possibilities of big wins (and ready to lay out some money), or if you’re looking to burn some “fun bucks” and want to just go for a fairly big jackpot without having too much of a minimum bet.

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If you just wanna listen to the song

If you want to hear Peter Griffin singing about Iraq Lobster

Original Release: IGT, 2002

One of IGT’s most recognizable games ever, Cleopatra moans at you to “double your pleasure” amidst mysterious music loops

Cleopatra (IGT, 2002)

A true classic of slots, Cleopatra was a big part of ushering in the change-over to video slots almost wholly replacing mechanical reel slots on casino floors in the 2000s. It’s one of the few true “penny slots” you can still find around … at least sort of. These days the minimum credit-in is usually five cents on the ones you can still find around on casino floors, but that’s still way cheaper than most modern games.

Penny slots were more common back then, but part of what made Cleopatra so exciting was the large potential max win. Your “budget” slots with low minimums that allow you to grind generally have caps of like a 1,000x to 3,000x-your-wager win per spin, so if you’re playing penny spins you could be looking at a grand prize of no more than a few hundred bucks (for the most rare possible outcome). Cleopatra packs a 10,000x max win if you hit five of the titular seductresses symbols on any spin, no bonus game needed. So a modest 50 cents per spin could net five grand in one fell swoop, if you get really lucky.

That’s actually close to the minimum bet, given five cents per credit and nine lines to cover, so you’re looking at a 45 cent minimum per spin to cover every line (you could bet just five cents on the center line if you’re looking to kill time or something). The aesthetics also definitely contributed to the appeal, you’ve got the little Egyptian music loops and Cleopatra moaning for you on line wins … little more sexy than you usually get from casino floor slots, especially these days. Though you never see any more of her than eyes behind a veil … very halal .

The Cleopatra symbols aren’t the only bonus deal, you can also land free spins that can potentially retrigger, and also wins during this period get a small multiplier (not sure if fixed or random). There aren’t any other bonus features, but this is a pretty solid one by itself.

I’m guessing there aren’t a huge amount of these machines still in service, but while combing around some Reno casinos recently I ran into it at two different places … just one sitting by its lonesome but it clearly gets some traffic (and the one I played was pretty generous to me).

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Original Release: Konami, 2008

A landmark title for Konami that defined their main slot offerings for several years around the turn of 2010

China Shores (Konami, 2008)

Review by: C. M0use

China Shores was a foundational game for Konami. They had dabbled in slots and pachinko for several years before, but this release set a pattern of 3×5 style games with very similar rules, reel designs and bonus features.

The game became so popular that it’s still hanging around over 15 years later, both at online and offline casinos. The online version tends to set a fixed minimum bet (usually 30 cents USD) that covers all lines automatically, but with the live casino versions you can choose both bet amount and number of lines.

That makes it one of the last true surviving “penny slots” in casinos, in that you can bet just one cent for one center line if you really want to. If you want the minimum bet covering all possible lines, it’s 30 cents per spin. The versions that are still hanging around brick and mortar casinos will also probably include the “Xtra Boost” or “Boosted Wins & Spins” feature that Konami retroactively introduced to some of their games. This is basically a “buy better odds” feature, the one time I tried it out it asked 450 credits to change up the rules about how the symbols are evaluated for winning combinations which I guess works out in your favor? I felt like it was a lot of money for something you don’t really fully understand just sitting at the machine though.

I think most people won’t care about that feature, this one’s utility is as a “grinder” that you can sit at for a long time with very little money and maybe pack some loyalty credits away without losing too much. The main appeal is that free spins are fairly frequent, can be very numerous when they land, and can also re-trigger. I think the minimum you get is six but it’s more common to land 16 or 24, and not uncommon to get at least eight more on a re-trigger. This is offset by the fact that you don’t really see improved chances of line wins or any other bonuses added during the spins, so they could very well end up not being all that lucrative. You can also take an “instant win” alternative payout when the bonus spins pop, but I feel like that’s probably always a bad deal given the possibility of re-triggering free spins.

And that’s about all there is to it. Like many of the similar Konami slots that would follow, China Shores is simple and easy to understand, has about as low of a minimum bet as is possible, and doesn’t ask a lot of money if you just want to hang out and play for awhile … no wonder it’s hanging in there, especially with the trend of gaudier and more expensive games these days.

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Original Release: Technos, 1988, Arcade
Other Releases: Sharp X68000 / NES (1989)

One of the first beach volleyball games for any platform, the NES form of the game nevertheless remains one of the better-regarded titles of the genre many years later

US Championship V’Ball (Arcade, Technos, 1988)

Where to Buy: eBay

How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide

Review by: C. M0use

Technos would eventually get heavily into sports games as a spinoff of its Kunio-kun (River City Ransom in the West) series, but US Championship V’Ball comes before all of that got underway. It’s more from the preceding Double Dragon era, with similar-looking sprites, animations and background bits.

The action is simple and not overly realistic two-on-two, as Duke Nukem and Boomhauer take on all comers in a variety of sunny US beach locales. The game’s central gimmick is that hard spikes can knock a dude over with sufficient force, and/or ricochet off him into the crowd. This is done by charging with the button before you spike, otherwise you just deliver a more standard spike that is almost always returned.

Though simple, the game is tough for a few reasons. There’s no automated “guidance” in spiking, so to speak, you just move completely freely and have to line yourself up with the ball with little tolerance for being out of position. It’s particularly hard to do when the computer gives you a short setup. And it’s pretty much mandatory to do charged spikes to win, but that mechanic takes a LOT of practice to position and time successfully. You’ll be getting destroyed right out of the gate as the computer always targets your player with its serves and spikes, so spiking and scoring is always your responsibility.

The game was more refined in its NES follow-up, Super Spike V’Ball, which ended up being one of the most beloved titles in the limited pantheon of video game volleyball.

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