It's 9pm and it's casino time - have a few drinks, have a little gamble, win a few grand, lose a few grand... it's the experience that counts more than anything.

I look at my watch - it's only 11pm and lady luck is on my side - I've got a King of Clubs and a 7 of spades, but do I stick or twist? Well I'm on a lucky run and I can afford to lose £500 considering I've won the last five hands, and if I win then that's another £1000 in the wallet, so what the hell - "Twist!"

The big hand has struck 1am and I've only got a £20 left - oh look, there's that slot machine I jackpotted at the start of the night and that old guy's been on there for hours and won nothing, so it's money making time for sure!

Oh well, I don't know what the time is because I traded my watch in for chips, I would get a taxi home but I've got nothing left and nothing to look forward to but my bed... at the end of a long walk home.

This is the premise of Hard Rock Casino, a game where you can gamble your way to success or lose oh so very badly but without any real life consequences - an interesting concept if you consider how poker has exploded onto the late night TV scene; some of the bigger tournaments are even screened on actual sports channels nowadays. However, this popularity has yet to be seen within the gaming fraternity - and I can see why.

I used to work in a casino funnily enough - I called the bingo, kept an eye on the slot machines old and new, and there were even the old table-based games like craps and roulette situated in the building. It was a weird place to work - at one end of the scale you had the razzmatazz associated with big wins, but at the opposite end you would see all the losers who had gambled their last pennies away. In this game you can experience both extremes, but without the actual realisation of losing thousands of pounds or being able to count your winnings. That's the biggest problem with Hard Rock Casino; trying to simulate an activity that millions of people play for real, but without the risk of losing or the reward of winning real cash to put in your bank account.

The game places you inside a Las Vegas casino; it says it's going to be an adventure, but it's a very linear experience. You can spend as much time as you want making money but essentially you are meant to complete goals that are set at the start of each casino level, like winning ten straight hands of blackjack or holding onto the craps dice for seven throws. Once you've completed these goals and made enough money, you can move onto the next casino.

There are a fair few games on offer and you don't need to unlock them in any special way, but I felt there was nothing more to do than complete the objectives and nothing to make me want to become a success in the game; there is no story to enjoy, no reward besides computerised money, no character relationships to maintain or discover - just plain old gambling watered down to its lowest common denominator. I'm grateful for the amount of games on offer, but they fall into four main genres; tables, poker, slot machines and sports betting. All the poker games pretty much follow the same rules besides blackjack, and while the table games are the most interesting of the lot, they're also the most underdeveloped in both visuals and sound. The slot machines are a simple case of repeatedly pressing X because they all look and work the same besides a few different icons, whilst the sports betting is just poorly implemented. The developers tried to add a little invention by allowing you to win a car as a slot machine prize, but it's not really worth the time or effort.

One thing this game excels at is its tutorial mode - personally I know how to play basic Blackjack, Craps and Texas No Limit Hold'em Poker, but just after one play I now know how to play them properly. The same can be said of the other game tutorials; they slowly introduce you to basics and by the end you should have a very good understanding of how to play. However, the game lets itself down badly because this tutorial is not available once you start playing, so you just end up playing a guessing game if you forget what you're doing and it becomes a tiresome experience. Most of the time it's you against the dealer - i.e. the casino - and their AI is good, but to be fair you would expect that due to the nature of the game; it would be silly for the dealer to change a very good hand for a poor one.

The best idea in the game are the tournaments you can enter, which have an entrance fee but if you do well you can win mucho mucho money. Nevertheless, they can be let down by the repetitive nature of the slot game mechanics, which boils down to randomly pressing the X button as the timer counts down. The poker tournaments are better, but they lack intensity and atmosphere. Considering that all the games are based on chance, there is no possibility of card counting or other such gambler tips - which is a shame. As the games are supposedly based on luck, it is entirely possible to spend three hours playing and not win anything - which is much more frustrating than doing so in real life. Besides the Adventure mode, there are Tournament, Quick Play and multiplayer modes, but they offer nothing new, so the lifespan declines rapidly. To be fair to the game, when you're winning you do find yourself getting addicted to the concept of successful gambling, but you'll never get addicted to Hard Rock Casino.

You move around the casino in a very linear first person view, moving left or right then choosing if you want to enter a gambling area. Once in the area you've selected, moving left or right guides you between tables and slot machines. When you select a table, the view switches to each player as they make their tactical decision and this is the only time you see your character. You can create your character if you want, but the options are very limited and you won't find anyone who looks like you unless you have a cartoony face. All the characters in the game follow a bold, colourful, cartoony style that really doesn't fit in with the fairly detailed casino background. The slots are unimaginative though - often just simple grey metallic structures - whilst the tables look quite lifeless and fail to create much of an atmosphere. When challenged, a pop up comic screen appears - it's something different but a lot more work could have gone into it. The slot machines sound like slot machines, which I guess is a good thing, but everywhere else the ambience is not at all engaging. The casino sounds like it is situated in a graveyard, while the characters' voices and comments are ill judged, unfunny and completely stereotypical. Considering that the games are based on randomly generated luck, I can't understand why more effort hasn't been put into the visuals and sound; the casino side-game found in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is better than this.

Just after one play I could think of a whole host of ways that Hard Rock Casino could have been better - and none of them include improving the visuals and sound. More themed casinos to enter would have given the game extra longevity - maybe you might have been able to ask some of the computer players for advice on what to do in the next hand, you could have used the money won to buy gadgets to increase your chances of winning and perhaps participate in dodgy dealings with dealers, or instead of just winning money other things could be up for grabs, such as a car. Then there could have been the possibility of taking a beating for getting caught cheating, maybe being banned with the challenge of getting back in unnoticed, you could have built relationships with other players, have slot machines that rely less on just pressing X (i.e. bandits that require more thought), implement rivalries between AI opponents and you because you took all their money and finally including some more tournaments with added flashing lights and techno beats. Okay, so the last suggestion was a visual idea - but on a serious note, this game could have been so much better than what it is now with just a few more inventive ideas included.

Hard Rock Casino is a poor game that could have been thoroughly enjoyable; however, the lack of polish, presentation and playability make this a game I simply cannot recommend. I like to make a bet every now and again, but place your money on Hard Rock Casino and you're backing a guaranteed loser.

Reviewed by Christopher McNally for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).