OVERALL RATING		3.0
Presentation		3.0
Control		2.5
Gameplay		3.5
Fun factor		4.0
User Rating		3.0

6 Shooter Showdown Black Jack is the second Hudson release that places a popular card game in the Old West.  The first was poker and the interesting part about this series is that besides delivering the usual casino-style experience, it mixes in a little wild west flavor with gunplay by way of mini-games.

In a sense, this is the second chapter in the story about a wandering card player, you.  (The first chapter was the previous poker game.)  You’ve come to the town of Laredo after taking a bounty on a notorious gang leader who’s been hiding out.  In order to capture him, you’ll have to raise funds to buy the necessary weapons.  How will you do this?  By playing the local card favorite, Blackjack.

There are a number of casinos available to do your bidding in and a hotel will also provide the general store to purchase items and a place to recover.  Starting at the Ole Saloon Girl, you must gain a certain amount of winnings in order to proceed to the next saloon and each will have a much tougher dealer.  While you win hands and increase your money amount, bonus games will appear and allow you to win even more money.  These are typical shooting gallery games where you must be quick on the draw and highly accurate but a few others like Three Card Monty are also playable.

Playing Blackjack is handled the same way as you normally would anywhere.  You place your bet, grab your cards and decide whether to Hit, Stand or Double down.  All of the usual rules apply except that there’s a maximum bid amount of $200.   If you lose all of your money, you are declared bankrupt as must start again from the beginning.

When you’ve finally earned enough money to buy the right weapon, it’ll be time to take on the gang and bring in your bounty.  This is also a shooting gallery game where you must eliminate all of the gang members as they appear from out of doors, windows or behind barrels.  However, it’s much tougher than you think.  This isn’t because of the gang itself, but more because of how the controls all of a sudden become atrocious.  In other mini-games the targeting cursor snaps to targets giving you an easier time of hitting the right ones but in this one, it seems to have a mind of it’s own.  It’s a mixture of both snapping and scrolling that just isn’t very helpful at all.  It’s enough to make you nix the storyline altogether and just work at playing Blackjack instead.  I don’t know why they change so drastically since throughout the rest of the game they work just fine.

6 Shooter Showdown Black Jack does make the card game interesting because it’s story-driven approach gives it more purpose.  Outside of the lackluster controls when taking on the gang, it’s a solid Blackjack game that is challenging and will test your know-how.  The mini-game inclusions are also rewarding and you can play them separately through the main menu when unlocked.  This alone should be enough to make you pick up a new Blackjack game.