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I've never played a game based on horse racing. In fact, I don't think I've ever actually seen one. Regular readers of this newsletter probably know by now that I have a bias toward action games and have less interest in games not involving reflexes, which is why I tend to avoid number-crunching games unless they have a well-developed graphical component. When I saw the screenshots of Horse Racing Unlimited and saw how good it looked, I thought it was worth a look.

While it's a little simplistic in its execution, HRU is a fairly interesting change of pace and not a bad way of spending some of your gaming time. As you might've guessed by now, HRU focuses purely on the betting aspects of horse racing. The game works like this: you first check the racing program to pick your horse. The program is pretty simple and lists the odds and performance history of each horse. After that, you simply place the type of bet and choose how much money you'd like to bet (you get $20 to start can bet in $1 increments). You get several different types of bets (win, place, show, quinella, exacta, trifecta). Unfortunately, the rather vague documentation doesn't explain what these different bet types are, so you'll have to play around to figure them out (they aren't too complicated). Once your bet is placed, you get to view the actual race. This is obviously the most exciting part of the game, and while the animation is good, the horses move a bit too slowly, and the race itself takes up too much game time. After the race is over, you're taken back to the main screen (assuming you're not broke), where you can take another crack at betting.

As I said before, HRU has pretty good graphics and a very easy to use interface. And after playing, I can see the appeal behind the idea. However, the game will likely get old quickly for some because it's simply built around having a "day at the races." While it's fun, I wish the game play could be a bit more involved, with, say, some sort of career mode to extend the game play over longer periods instead of just going through the same process over and over again. Still, Horse Racing Unlimited is a neat idea and a good way to have some fun gambling without having to lose your shirt.

Title: Horse Racing Unlimited	Developer: Prowler Studios
Genre: Gambling	Demo: Y
Platform: Pocket PC 2003+	Price: $12.95
Discuss this game	Rating (of 4): 3.5