Championship Darts (Jewel Case) - PC

A couple of months ago I got hooked on playig free darts games online and decided to look for a PC version. I quickly found out that there isn't much of a market out there for dart video games, but I decided to go with this one since it promised an arcade style experience, and I was pleasantly surprised. Since this is an egames release I wasn't expecting much, but the game's visuals are bright and bold, featuring large inviting dartboards with clearly marked scoring areas, arcade style splash screens, and cool music. A nice feature is the close up cam, which keeps you from feeling as though you're throwing blindly hoping to rack up points. The controls couldn't be simpler: you just click the mouse once to set the angle of your shot and once more to set the power. The gauge flashes when you've made a perfect throw, and once you've mastered this it's easy to throw the dart wherever you need to. In single player gameplay you select one of 5 characters (my favorite is Merlin "The Wizrad" Bradley") and copete in the ametuer world cup against a bunch of pub players, each with their own knickname. If you beat them you move on to the pro cup, where you have a chance to unlock other venues. The games feature a PA announcer who will shout out your score after a turn, and pro cup has its own annnouncer who provides funny and at times, risque commentary that runs along the bottom of the screen. True to the arcade format, lose any of these rounds and you have to start over from the beginning. The only downside to this game is that many of the other games, such as round the clock and cricket, can only be accessed via the 2 player mode. Single player is limited to the world cup game, a time challange, and a practice mode. Still it's challanging and fun enough to have signifigant replay value.