Foursome Is All Over the Course: From Bad to Addictive

By AARON CURTISS

Feb. 22, 1999 12 AM PT

My parents tolerated no hooliganism of any sort.

So I naturally grew up to play video games--a hobby that frees the hooligan hiding in all of us. Normally, games drop us behind the stick of a space fighter or the wheel of a stock car. But a recent crop of titles aims lower, instead striving to re-create historic bad-boy vices with a sort of digital Pleasure Island of dice, cards, pool and miniature golf.

Miniature golf?

That’s what I thought, but I figured if Beavis and Butt-head were playing, the game must have some sort of twist. Yet the only way “Bunghole in One” for the PC lives up to its bad-boy image is by promising a lot more than it delivers.

This is nothing more than a miniature-golf game. Sure, Beavis, Butt-head, Todd and Principal McVicker all play minor roles in it. Sure, the courses feature obstacles that match their names--from Burger World and Nacho Pichu to Cornholio.

But all that stuff is just graphic and audio garnish. Really, this is just moderately challenging miniature golf. It could just as easily be Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Pluto standing around the putting greens--except I doubt Mickey would ever announce before a putt that he just “cut the cheese.”

Beavis and Butt-head’s other digital adventures have actually had something to do with Beavis and Butt-head. The stories were funny. The characters’ actions were consistent with the show. The environments rocked.

The new game, by contrast, feels like Mike Judge recorded five minutes of dialogue, which then loops incessantly throughout the game. Wisecracks are funny once. Maybe even twice. But after about the fourth or fifth time Mr. Van Driessen talks about leading a jackass to water, the joke just grates.

If the game isn’t going to inspire laughs, it should at least deliver solid play. Instead, it offers relatively primitive controls lacking a lot of refinement. One game was more than enough for me.

The game requires a Pentium 133 with at least 16 megabytes of RAM and 50mb of available hard disk space. Save it for something worthwhile.

Unlike Beavis and Butt-head, who try to rowdy up a saccharine pastime like miniature golf, “Golden Nugget 64” tries to put a shiny, happy image on gambling. Gambling games are as old as home video gaming. One of the first titles for the old Atari 2600 featured blackjack.

That’s just one of the 15 games of chance featured in “Golden Nugget 64,” the first true gambling game for Nintendo 64--a console that caters more to little kids than compulsive adults. Get them while they’re young, I guess.

Although the game box warns in little black letters that gambling is illegal for anyone under 21, “Golden Nugget 64” gets the young ones ready for their first trip to Vegas by teaching them all the rules and strategies they need to hit it big. Blackjack, craps, seven-card stud. Roulette.

The interface is smooth, although some of the single-player options run a little long as the dealer talks to every computer opponent. That’s easily changed with the options menu. Otherwise, the games are realistic. Not that it’s that tough to duplicate video poker on a television screen. But even games like roulette and blackjack move smoothly.

For folks who dig Vegas not for all the shows and cheesy hotels but for the gambling, “Golden Nugget 64” provides a midweek fix. Despite the “Everyone” rating, I would not recommend it for kids. Although it provides all the tutoring a young card shark needs, the game neglects one very important lesson: The house always wins in the end.

I would, however, urge them to try “Virtual Pool 64,” the console version of Interplay’s PC hit. Yes, this is pool. But it’s also a lesson in physics and geometry.

The interface allows players to scope out their shots in advance, with the option of seeing how various angles will affect the balls on the table. The balls move with surprising realism.

But nothing I’ve played in a long time is as addictive as “Devil Dice,” a deceptively simple puzzler for Sony PlayStation. Players manipulate giant dice on a playing board, trying to line up as many dice of the same number as the die shows. For instance, if a die shows three, players need to match the die to at least two other dice showing three.

Sounds simple, I know, but it’s complicated by the fact that the only way to move dice is to roll them. That obviously changes the number facing up. Tricky.

Times staff writer Aaron Curtiss reviews video games every Monday in The Cutting Edge. To comment on a column or to suggest games for review, send e-mail to aaron.curtiss@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Essentials

Bunghole in One

* Platform: PC

* Publisher: GT Interactive

* ESRB* rating: Teen

* Price: $39.95

* Bottom line: Miniature golf with Beavis and Butt-head

Devil Dice

* Platform: Sony PlayStation

* Publisher: THQ

* ESRB rating: Everyone