Alone Again, Naturally

Who knew the Xbox Live Arcade title, Soltrio, would be so popular.  Major Nelson's blog wraps the top ten most played XBLA each week, and the week it was released, Soltrio was the number 2 most played game.  Nevermind that I've been playing it to death, I just didn't think it would be that popular.  It is a very good solitaire game.  Silvercreek makes this a sequel to the Hardwood Solitaire games.

As all Silvercreek games, it has great music, animation, and artwork.  New this time around is the "Voyage" mode and the "Multiplayer modes."  Voyage is a map of different locations.  The games are not set, but you must win three games of any solitaire at each location to progress and win cardmaker "parts."  Cardmaker parts are for designing card backs which actually get consumed when you use them.  This is not quite as good as the PC versions, but you don't have a whole lot of image maker/editor/paint programs on the Xbox360.

Multiplayer is some odd form of competitive solitaire (technically not solitaire).  People kept quitting games.  However, if you want to get the achievements for online play, I have some tips.  First, make a new card back.  Then join a game.  You'll automatically get the "Play a game online" and "Show off a custom cardback," achievements.  The third achievement is viral and worth zero points, but if you manage to play against someone with the viral achievement, you'll get it, too.  I "got it" in case you're having trouble, so you can invite me to a game.

The other achievements are mostly from completing Voyage and Classic modes.  My favorite is "agoraphobia," which is a fear of crowds.  You get it by playing 1000 games of solitaire.  That's a lot of solitaire.  And if you're having trouble completing Voyage, you can always play Memory or Spider 1 Suit to unlock a padlock.

There is only one game that is obviously missing from the initial set.  They gave us Easy Klondike and Klondike.  Great.  The give us Super Three Shuffles and a Draw, which is the easy version of Flower Garden, and we also get Flower Garden.  Fantastic!  They gave us Easy Freecell and Freecell. Perfect!  They gave us Spider 1 Suit (which is the "easy" version) and no regular Spider.  Oops!  I wish that regular, 4-suit Spider will be released by itself and free.  They can charge points for packs of other games.  After all, I think Spider 1 Suit can be won every single time.