[Video Games] The Rise and Fall and Rise Again and Fall Again of Lab Zero Games
The last drama post I did about Kuma Miko seemed to have gotten some praise, but some wished to see a Hobby Drama post that had consequences outside “people got angry over it”. So without any further delay, here’s a story about a studio that’s close to my heart, one that I’ve backed twice and seen die twice. Note: This is a fairly lengthy drama, so forgive me if I’m not able to provide all of my sources. Most of the front half of this comes from this video, which chronicles the first half of Lab Zero entirely in Russian. From Ahad to Mike Z Let’s start in the beginning. Alex Ahad is a freelance illustrator who, in between other work, had created character designs for a prospective fighting game. Mike Zaimont is a professional fighting game player best known for games like BlazBlue and Marvel Vs. Capcom, but since 1999 had been coding a custom engine in his free time, which he hoped could be used for a fighting game. The two met in 2008, and the two quickly realized that with each other’s help, their dream could come true. In 2010, the two joined the newly developed game studio Reverge Labs. Joining their team was Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright, a friend of Ahad’s and daughter of a Disney animator who helped animate games such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Shantae; Peter Bartholow, who acted as CEO of Reverge as well as their PR arm; and an assortment of other animators and designers. Their goal: a fighting game in the style of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with hand-drawn animation that they called Skullgirls. After obtaining publishers in Autumn Games and Konami (at the time of development the Microsoft required indie devs to have a retail publisher in order to bring their games to Xbox Live Arcade), the team got to work on Skullgirls. Initial impressions were favorful - people liked Ahad’s unique character designs, the fluid animation, and the solid engine Mike Z built - but upon release, there were some concerns. The time and money needed to develop each character meant a starting roster of only eight characters, a far cry from other fighting games (the original MvC had 15 characters in 1998), and due to the team trying to get the game out, there was no in-game move list. Some were also concerned that the cast, consisting entirely of women, was too fanservice-filled, although Bartholow said that the characters were just attractive women who could fight as opposed to characters using their sexuality in battle (Ahad said that sex wasn’t his main focus, he just wanted to have monster girls fight each other). The team at Reverge Labs stressed that they would continue to update the game, with plans to add DLC if the game sold well enough. Good thing nothing could go wro- Everything goes wrong Alongside publishing Skullgirls, Autumn Games and Konami had previously published a karaoke game called Def Jam RapStar. Unfortunately, around March 2012, the time Skullgirls released, both parties were at the end of several lawsuits made against them - one argued that Autumn and Konami did not get the rights to some of the songs used in the game, while another claimed that the game was funded with a bank loan which Autumn Games was unable to pay back. The result of these costly lawsuits was that Autumn was unable to pay Reverge the money made from Skullgirls - this led to the entire Reverge team being laid off around July, and the future of the game in the air. And so, the team decided on a whim to reconvene as a new development studio, Lab Zero Games. At a fundraiser for breast cancer research which included a fighting game tournament, Mike Z revealed the first DLC fighter and promised that new information about her and the team would be posted soon. This would turn out to be an Indiegogo fundraising campaign that asked for $150,000 to develop the first DLC fighter, with more characters promised if people backed enough. In the end, $829,829 was raised in the campaign, enough to fund five DLC characters, a bevy of stages and voice packs, and other features. It was quickly becoming a cult classic. The Skullgirls Curse And so work on Skullgirls DLC was underway. However, a variety of events happened to befall Lab Zero during development, some causing controversy and others just annoying the team. Some dubbed this “The Skullgirls Curse”. So let’s go over some of them:
Paypal Woes: During the Indiegogo DLC campaign, Lab Zero announced that Ahad had created around 30 prospective designs for DLC characters, and that there would be a vote to see which characters would be the two “mystery characters” teased in the Indiegogo campaign. As you would guess, this caused the Skullgirls fanbase to get heated, to the point where some stressed that they would ask Indiegogo for their money back if their character didn’t win. PayPal, who managed the funds for this campaign, was concerned about these threats and put nearly all of the money on hold. Bartholow tried to negotiate with PayPal, and was eventually able to get the funding - once PayPal was given a hefty sum as collateral.
Bad Juju - If you notice on the list of prospective DLC characters, one character is Juju, a character who was designed by Ahad from a fan’s suggestion on a Whiteboard Wednesday art stream. Ahad seemed to like the idea of the character, and kept building her up until she became a legit character in the game. The original fan made a joke on Facebook that he’d like to be compensated for the design, which led Lab Zero to negotiate obtaining the character rights from him. They eventually worked out a contract that would give them the rights to the character, but only if the original fan didn’t reveal it until Lab Zero announced it themselves. The fan then posted about it on the Skullgirls forum the very next day, breaking the NDA immediately and making it so that Lab Zero couldn’t use the character at all.
Don’t be (Red) Cross with me: One of the characters included in the base game of Skullgirls is Valentine. As you can tell, the two biggest features of her character are her being a nurse and a ninja - as such, her costume is decorated with red crosses. This was upsetting to the real Red Cross, which fights hard to prevent its trademark from being associated with violence - as such, when they came to the Skullgirls publisher demanding a change, all red crosses in the game had to be changed to magenta.
#FucKonami: In November 2013, due to Konami barely helping at all with the publishing process for Skullgirls (they refused to greenlight any patch or DLC until Lab Zero tested it itself on their own time and money, they didn’t help with Microsoft’s certification process for Xbox, etc), Lab Zero dissolved their publishing agreement. This led to a massive snafu where, due to the dissolution, the original Skullgirls was taken down on consoles, and Lab Zero had to scramble to get a new publisher on the consoles side and then reupload the game as Skullgirls: Encore. It was a tangled web of issues which the above YouTube video relays, but required certification from both console storefronts and even the Japan storefront, as their publisher there was also coincidentally being dissolved at the same time without Lab Zero knowing.
EVO 2014: During one of the largest fighting game tournaments of 2014, Skullgirls was promised a space for airing their tournament stream by controller distributor Madcatz. Lab Zero and Autumn provided a pot for the tourney, and everything was smooth sailing - until a multitude of delays made it so that the entire time Skullgirls had for streaming was replaced with Tekken tournaments. By the time these issues were fixed, only the final four matches were able to be shown.
What’s the worst kind of ship? Censor-SHIP!: In April 2015, one of the patches of Skullgirls altered the animation of some characters, which according to Lab Zero themselves was because of their own artistic values (while they admitted that panty shots in a fighting game comprised entirely of girls is unavoidable, they didn’t want to go out of their way to show them). As you might expect, this led to a massive onslaught of negative Steam reviews and caustic tweets from people who abhor censorship of any kind. Funnily enough, this brigade started around October, six months after the changes were made, and only via word of mouth - people didn’t even notice there was a change until someone told them about it.
Backer characters: As part of their Indiegogo campaign, some of the highest-paying backers could have their original characters put in the background of some custom stages. Lab Zero warned these backers that these stages would be a casino and a ballroom, respectively, so their OCs should ideally be designed with a formal flair. Some backers did follow this unspoken rule - ZONE, a notoriously NSFW Flash animator who helped work on the DLC characters, made a perfectly formal look for his mascot Zone-tan. As for the others, well...
SonicFox: This isn’t included in the compilation video mentioned above as this occurred way after all the initial Skullgirls drama. Basically, SonicFox is a five-time EVO champion and one of the best Skullgirls players in the world. In May 2020, after Skullgirls was mostly complete, they were given a cameo in Skullgirls’ training stage. Of note is that SonicFox is black, non-binary, and a furry, and the character added to the game was their fursona, who has a trans rights flag in the inside of their jacket you can only see for like one frame. People reacted as you would expect. Also, one of the original backers requested to change their character as they were now transitioning, which didn’t get as much flak, so that’s nice I guess.
So as you can see, Skullgirls had a menagerie of problems and issues during its dev time. However, their Skullgirls curse seemed to have faded away, as they had a new game in store. If I was Indivisible Indivisible was a new project of Lab Zero, announced in 2015 as Skullgirls DLC production was nearing an end. Billed as a platformer RPG similar to games like Valkyrie Profile, it would tell the story of Ajna, a young girl whose town is stricken by tragedy and she finds out that she’s a portion of the god of creation, who has grown discontent with the world and wishes to remake it anew. Its Indiegogo campaign focused on Incarnations, party members who came from a variety of cultures, religions, and demographics not usually represented in popular culture. And as you can see by the fact that it got over two million dollars in funding, people were excited to see what Lab Zero could do. They even got enough funding to get Studio Trigger, of anime fame, to create the opening for the game. Of course, it wouldn’t be Lab Zero without the occasional issue here and there. As shown above, some Incarnations were changed or scrapped during development, which irked some who backed because of that character specifically (not naming any names, but look in the incarnation list and see if you notice any). Backer characters were included again, and although there were more places to add them so they didn’t look out of place, you still had the occasional few that did. Critics liked the art and presentation of the game, but disliked some gameplay issues: the second half of the game became a cakewalk once you progressed far enough, it was a bit of a pain to go from one end of the map to another, especially for side quests, and a bunch of party members simply weren’t complete. Most egregiously of all, the Nintendo Switch version of the game was ported by a different company and released before Lab Zero was even aware of it - which forced them to scramble again to patch it up so it was on par with other consoles. Still, it was a better situation they were in than when Skullgirls started. They had a legit publisher in 505 Games, people were satisfied with the base game, and Mike Z mentioned how the base game would continue to be refined with gameplay changes, small additions, and guest incarnations from other indie games.NBC even announced that Indivisible would be adapted into a television program for their Peacock streaming service. Things were looking up for Lab Zero. Everything goes wrong... AGAIN During the production of Indivisible, Alex Ahad was let go by Lab Zero. Not much is mentioned about it except that he was growing increasingly hostile, making it difficult to work with him, and his art was not meeting the standards for the game. He left, tried to sue Lab Zero, and eventually agreed to a sizable settlement. Mariel became the lead artistic director in his stead, and the art team had to be rearranged to compensate. Now, as Lab Zero was preparing to transition from being employee-owned, Mike Z was made the temporary head of the studio. In June of 2020, Mike Z did an “I can’t breathe” joke during a Skullgirls livestream just days after George Floyd’s death - he later apologized for this, claiming he was trying to bring attention to the issue. Soon, more peopleprovided proof that Mike Z has had a history of sexual harassment. Kinuko chimes in as well, noting that while she tolerated inappropriate behavior for years, when she talked to Mike Z about it, he blamed her for his actions. She talked with others in the team, who came to the conclusion that Zaimont had treated all of them like this. Some Lab Zero employees resigned on their own, while others pushed for Zaimont to resign. However, as Mike was still head of the studio, he dissolved the studio board and laid off the rest of the staff. So where does that leave everyone?
Ahad is still doing art on his own, and gets by with commissions and his Patreon.
Kinuko, as well as the majority of Lab Zero, created a new studio called Future Club, which has promised to create new titles with the same art style they refined from Skullgirls and Indivisible.
Autumn Games still own the rights to Skullgirls, and with the help of some former Lab Zero devs, created a mobile version of the game. It’s surprisingly not bad, although it’s of course stuffed with microtransactions. However, they’ve apparently made enough to fund a completely new character for the game for both the mobile and console/PC versions.
After everything with Mike Z, 505 games put out a statement which signaled the end of all development of the game, leaving it unfinished. Mike Z has been suspended from Skullgirls streams and the like, making his future in the gaming world unclear.
There’s probably something I’ve missed in all of this, but yep. I backed them twice, both for Skullgirls and Indivisible. I don’t regret it, and I’m looking forward to whatever Future Club does, but I won’t lie - I’ll always miss what could have been.
Stokes's Bristol Nightclub incident in detail (From: The Comeback Summer by Geoff Lemon)
IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a place where misadventure could begin, you can’t go past Mbargo. The nightclub’s streetfront is painted a purple so bright you’ll see it in your dreams. Strings of giant sequins shimmer in the breeze. Its phonically inventive name is spelt in silver letters that climb its three-storey terrace facade. Inside are strips of burning neon, a few booths, floorboards so marinated in drink that they have an ingredients list. Bristol is a student city on England’s south coast crowded with music and nightlife and street art. This is Banksy’s home town, and the tourism board suggests in rather strong terms that ‘you would be a fool not to see his amazing work firsthand’. The same organisation describes Mbargo as ‘intimate’, which is fair for a place where you can catch an STI standing up. Students cram into its modest dimensions while people with names like DJ Klaud battle for billing with £1.50 drink deals over seven sloppy nights a week. To get a sense of the story about to come, consider that it’s the kind of place open until two o’clock on a Monday morning, and that at two o’clock on a Monday morning, Ben Stokes still thought it had closed too early. The Ashes of 2017–18 had disciplinary bookends. It was after that series that Australia’s two leaders went off the rails in South Africa. It was a few weeks before that Ashes tour that England’s biggest star windmilled his way into his own disaster. In the early hours of 25 September 2017, Stokes and teammate Alex Hales were barred from re-entering Mbargo after a night out on the piss. A Sunday thrashing of an abject West Indies in an ignored series at the fag-end of the season apparently required ample celebration. After arguing with the bouncer and hanging about at the door for a while, they wandered off to find a casino in the hope of more drinking. They’d barely made it around the corner before getting in the middle of a conflict between four locals. As is said on the internet, it escalated quickly. The 26 September reporting was bloodless. Withholding names, police stated that a man ‘was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm’ while another went to hospital with facial injuries. England’s director of cricket Andrew Strauss separately confirmed that Stokes was the arrestee, adding that he had been released without charge and that Hales had gamely offered to ‘help police with their enquiries’. Administrators had a good chance of hiding behind that investigation, and the next day Stokes was named in the upcoming Ashes squad as expected. But that night the video emerged. Bristol student Max Wilson had shot it on his phone, then offered it to The Sun. What he thought was playing hardball was actually lowball: his opening price of £3000 was snapped up by a tabloid that would have paid ten times that. The Sun went on to make a mint by syndicating the rights worldwide. From a window above the fray, the vision showed six men on the street below performing the muddled choreography of a melee. One was right at the centre of it. One was waving a bottle, one dipped in and out, one tried to calm it. Two others floated around the edges. The central figure was unmistakable: red hair burning even in the streetlight as he launched into a series of blows against two of the men, falling to grapple with them on the ground, then following both across the street, swinging punches the whole way. Hales trailed behind, repeatedly and impotently shouting ‘Stokes! Stop! Stokes! Enough!’ The ECB could fudge issues that existed only in thickets of legalese, but not those captured in moving colour. Stokes was stood down from the next West Indies match, then suspended indefinitely. It emerged that he had broken his hand during the fight, something he’d done twice before while punching objects in dressing rooms. The response in Australia was fierce: Stokes was a thug, a lowlife, a selection that would disgrace England. It was not entirely coincidental that a ban for England’s best player would be handy for the Aussie team, but there was also a cultural split. In England, plenty of people still minimise pub fights as lads letting off steam. In Australia, heavy media coverage as a succession of young men were killed had inverted that tolerance. The discourse now saw any punch as potentially deadly and accordingly reckless. This was more poignant in a cricket context given that David Hookes, the dashing Test batsman and state coach, was killed in 2004 by a pub bouncer’s fist. The PR situation was bad for Stokes as details emerged of the injuries to the men he’d hit, and that one was a young war veteran and father. Stokes wasn’t officially removed from the Ashes squad through October but stayed behind when his teammates left, hoping for police to dismiss the matter in time for a late dash to Australia. His annual contract was renewed on the due date in case that came to pass. Then 29 October brought a twist in the tale. ‘Ben Stokes praised by gay couple after defending them from homophobic thugs,’ ran the headline. Kai Barry and Billy O’Connell had emerged. Not entirely out of nowhere: while Stokes had made no public comment, this story in his defence had initially been leaked to TV host Piers Morgan after the fight, as soon as the video appeared. Police body-camera footage played in court would later show that Stokes had given the same story to the arresting officer on the night. But no-one knew the identities of the fifth and sixth men in the video, and police appeals had turned up nothing. It was The Sun again with the breakthrough. Kai and Billy were perfect for a readership not keen on nuance. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we found out they were famous cricketers. I just thought Ben and Alex were quite hot, fit guys,’ said Kai, who was memorably described as a ‘former House of Fraser sales assistant’. The paper had the pair do a full photo shoot: layering the fake tan, showing off chest waxes, mixing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton into a range of outfits. Their best shot had them standing back to back, heads turned to the camera, in a mirror-image Zoolander moment. Suddenly The Sun was the England team’s best friend. ‘Their claims could lead to the all-rounder being cleared over the punch-up and freed to play in the First Test in Australia next month,’ it gushed, then gave a tasting platter of quotes: ‘We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero.’ ‘If Ben hadn’t intervened it could have been a lot worse for us.’ ‘We could’ve been in real trouble. Ben was a real gentleman.’ Would it be known forever as Kai and Billy’s Ashes? No. While the Bristol boys provided spin for Stokes’ reputation they didn’t influence the police. With charges still pending there was little choice – not given Strauss had previously sacked Kevin Pietersen for being annoying. Stokes remained suspended through the Ashes and a one-day series in Australia, and lost the vice-captaincy. It was January 2018 before the Crown Prosecution Service laid a charge. That charge surprisingly came in as affray, a crime that can carry prison time but is classified as ‘a breach of the peace as a result of disorderly conduct’. The men he had punched, Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, faced the same count, charged as equal participants in a fight rather than Stokes being charged with assaulting them. Alex Hales was not charged, despite being seen in the video to aim several kicks when Ryan Ali was lying on the ground. Given the underwhelming standing of the offence, Stokes was cleared by the ECB to tour New Zealand, and kept playing until his trial in August 2018, which he missed a Test to attend. None of the three defendants would be convicted. The reasoning behind the charges was never released and was attributed vaguely to ‘CPS lawyers’. The service gave the case to Alison Morgan, a prosecutor of a class known as Treasury Counsel who usually handle serious criminal matters. Morgan had a scheduling clash and never ended up court for the case, but in 2018 and 2019 she would go on to win damages and admissions of libel from The Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph variously for incorrectly reporting that she had been responsible for the inadequate and inconsistent charging decisions. Morgan’s successor on the case was Nicholas Corsellis QC, who on the first day of trial was permitted by the CPS to request two assault charges be added against Stokes. ‘Upon further review,’ claimed a CPS statement, ‘we considered that additional assault charges would also be appropriate.’ This was patent nonsense from the service that eight months earlier had chosen the lesser charge. Any lawyer knows that no judge will allow new charges once a trial has begun, because the defence hasn’t had time to prepare. But such a request could deflect criticism of the prosecution service by technically making the judge the one who disallows the charge. Working through the story from the trial and the tape is complicated. You had a Ryan and a Ryan, a Hale and a Hales, a Billy and a Barry and a Ben. You had several versions of events as to who knew whom, who was drinking with whom, who had insulted whom and who had merely engaged in ‘banter’, a word that in modern Britain has to do an unconscionable amount of lifting. The reporting had constantly mixed up the Ryans as to who had which injury, who was in hospital, who had played which part in the fight, and whose mum had which stern words to say about it. Let’s agree that from now Ryan Ali is Ryan One, the firefighter who ended up with a fractured eye socket and a cracked tooth. Ryan Two can be Ryan Hale, the soldier who scored concussion and facial lacerations. Mr Barry and Mr O’Connell are best known per The Sun as Kai and Billy. In scorecard parlance we’ll leave the cricketers as Stokes and Hales. Amid the confusion, Stokes and his lawyers built his case in a straightforward way. The UK legal definition of affray is ‘if a person threatens or uses unlawful violence or force towards another person, which causes another person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their safety’. That means it doesn’t account for violence that harms a target, but violence that might frighten a theoretical bystander. The wiggle room for Stokes was with ‘unlawful’, because the charge excuses violence in defending oneself or others. This interpretation hinged on the beginning of the video, where Ryan One waves a beer bottle about and takes a swing at Kai. The version from Stokes was that he was minding his own business walking down the street when he heard homophobic abuse. He intervened verbally and was threatened verbally by Ryan One – something that Ryan One denied but that couldn’t be proved or disproved. In fear for his safety Stokes had to nullify that threat by bashing Ryan One before it went the other way. He registered Ryan Two in his peripheral vision as another possible threat, and again had only one recourse. Stokes also had to convince the jury to disregard testimony from Mbargo’s bouncer that he had been looking for a fight. A solid lump of a man, Andrew Cunningham had not enjoyed his patron’s attempts to get back into the club after the bouncer declined an offer of a bribe. ‘He got a bit verbally abusive towards myself. He mentioned my gold teeth and he said I looked like a cunt and I replied, “Thank you very much.” He just looked at me and told me my tattoos were shit and to look at my job.’ Cunningham described these words as coming in ‘a spiteful tone, quite an angry tone’, and said that Stokes still seemed angry as he walked away. These were details the doorman had nothing to gain by inventing, but each of them Stokes denied. By his own accounting he had drunk a beer at the game and three pints at his hotel, then ‘potentially had some Jägerbombs’ along with half a dozen vodkas at the club. He insisted that after all of this he was not drunk. If I may take a moment here to call upon the wisdom of experience – a person who cannot definitively say whether they have had any Jägerbombs has definitely had some Jägerbombs. A Jägerbomb is an experience that does not pass one by. Further to that, a person who says they have ‘potentially’ done something has definitely done that thing and doesn’t want to admit it. A person who has had between 15 and 24 standard drinks in one evening is shitfaced. A person who tries to bribe a bouncer £300 – three hundred quid! – to get into Mbargo – Mbargo! – is beyond shitfaced. If Stokes admitted that he was drunk then the prosecution could say he was out of control. He claimed clear recall of assessing a threat, feeling fear and deciding to protect himself with force. He confidently denied details from the bouncer’s testimony, like using the word ‘cunt’ or mentioning gold teeth. Yet on other details he claimed a ‘significant memory blackout’. He didn’t remember the punch that saw Ryan One taken away by ambulance. He didn’t remember what the Ryans had said to Kai and Billy, only that those words were homophobic. With no head injury, as one of the few people who hadn’t been hit, he had supposedly suffered this memory loss despite being sober. The version from Kai and Billy was compatible but vague: they had been walking along, they ‘heard … shouts’ of abuse from an unspecified source, then Stokes ‘stepped in’ and thus they avoided possible harm. They claimed to have been bought a drink by Stokes at Mbargo, although CCTV showed them meeting outside. The overall implication from both accounts was that the cricketers had been pals with Kai and Billy, while the Ryans as per The Sun’s headline were a roving band of thugs. The reality though is that the Ryans were the ones hanging out with Kai and Billy at Mbargo. Police discussed CCTV from inside the club in questioning and at trial. On that footage the four Bristolians bought drinks for one another, danced together, and Kai was noted to have variously touched Ryan Two’s crotch and Ryan One’s buttock. Ryan One told police that all of this was taken lightheartedly and wasn’t a problem. Indeed, when the Ryans called it a night the other two left with them. This much is clear from footage out the front of Mbargo, which shows Kai and Billy exit the club and start talking with a subdued Hales and a demonstrative Stokes, who are stuck outside. The vision was played in court to determine whether Stokes was antagonistic towards Kai and Billy, as he appears to impersonate them and to throw a lit cigarette their way. More interesting is that after a few minutes the Ryans emerge, and all six actors in the fight video briefly form a prequel in the one frame. Ryan Two pats Billy on the chest in friendly fashion with his right hand before clapping him on the back with his left. He moves past and does the same to Kai before leaving the shot. Ryan One stops to speak to Kai. They lean in for a moment, talking, then Kai turns and they walk out of frame together. Billy hangs around for a few seconds at the door and then looks after them and races to catch up. Stokes and Hales remain outside the club to remonstrate further with the bouncers. Whatever discord develops around the corner is between four men who left amicably together minutes earlier. There’s no way to know what caused that friction. If Ryan One did use homophobic slurs, he might have been drunkenly obnoxious for no reason. He might have had an insecure macho response to some extra flirtation. He might have thought unkindness was funny – ‘banter’ once again. Or he might have said something that was misunderstood, as both Ryans insisted in court that they had not used nor had the impulse to use any abusive language. What clearly didn’t happen was an attack by bigots on random passers-by. This kind of crime is regular enough that an audience understands the horror of it, and this is what was evoked by the public accounts of Stokes, Billy and Kai. All we know is that there was some verbal dispute among the Bristol locals, and that Stokes came along behind them and put himself in the middle of it. Ryan One responded to the interference aggressively and away they went. There are plenty of reasons to look sideways at the idea that Stokes was a saviour. Foremost, neither Kai nor Billy was called upon as witnesses in court. You’d think it would be ideal to have Stokes’ story backed up by those who benefited from his selflessness. But his defence team had developed the impression that the pair had shown a changeable recall of events amid a hard-partying lifestyle, and would be dismantled by the prosecution on the stand. That raises the question of whether The Sun coached their quotes for the 2017 interview. Despite missing court, Kai and Billy clearly enjoyed the attention. In 2018 after the trial they did a follow-up spread in the same paper about how poor Ben had been mistreated. They got a television spot on Good Morning Britain and glowed about his heroism. In 2019 The Sun wheeled them out once more to say that Stokes should get a knighthood. In 2017 they had ‘never watched cricket’ but by 2019 were supposedly volunteering sentences like, ‘He saved us, now he’s saved the Ashes.’ Whether they were paid for these appearances is not known, but the chance to be famous for a day can be lure enough. If you find this cynical, consider that on the night in question, the Bristol boys were so deeply moved and thankful for Ben’s intervention that they left him to be arrested and never attempted to find out who he was. Seconds after the video ended, an off-duty policeman reached the scene. You might think that someone grateful to a saviour would speak on his behalf. Instead, said Kai, ‘it all got a bit scary so we walked off. It was too much for me and we went to Quigley’s takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips.’ They didn’t give their hero a thought for over a month while police issued multiple appeals for witnesses. As for Stokes, he told his arresting officer that ‘his friends’ had been attacked. After three minutes of chat outside a nightclub, these friends were so dear to him that he has never contacted them again: not after the newspaper piece, not after the verdict. He didn’t want to see how they were or thank them for their support. He didn’t mention them by name in his solicitor’s statement after the trial. The Stokes defence rested on Ryan One’s bottle, which he had carried out of Mbargo to finish a beer, not to use in a Sharks versus Jets amateur production. But once he turned it over to hold it by the neck it became a weapon. Intent and interpretation can change the material nature of things. Part of Stokes’ justification in court was that the bottle implied that the two Ryans might have ‘other weapons’ hidden away. You can understand how a jury could decide that created doubt. Not being convicted, though, doesn’t give the contents of the video a big green tick. It does not, as his lawyer claimed, vindicate Stokes. Looking in detail, Ryan One is belligerent but his movements telegraph a bluff. Hales is the person he’s gesturing at, but they’re several metres apart when Ryan One cocks his arm ostentatiously, showing off the bottle rather than bracing to swing. He skips forward but Hales skips back and Ryan One doesn’t follow. Kai stretches out an arm to impede Ryan One, who has a drunken stumble, nearly eats pavement, then staggers towards Kai and hits him in the back. That hand is still holding the bottle, but his strike is a side-arm cuff on a soft part of the body. It’s all pretty tame. This is where Stokes gets involved. Having moved across to protect Hales, he now takes three large steps to run around Kai and booms his first punch at Ryan One. They fall to the ground and the bottle clinks away. Stokes gets to his feet to punch down at the fallen man, while Hales arrives to kick him ineffectively then runs off across the street for some unknown reason. Ice-cream van? Stokes is soon back in the grapple having his shirt pulled up to show off his Durham tan. Ryan Two steps in for the first time to pull Stokes away, prompting a couple more random punches at this new target, then Stokes trips backwards over Ryan One and sprawls in the street. Hales chooses this moment to return and aim some solid kicks at the head of the man on the ground. Nothing so far is a triumph of moral philosophy or the pugilistic arts. But if it all stopped here, perhaps you could say it was somewhere approaching fair. Ryan One has behaved like a turnip and it’s not an entirely unjust world that would give him a whack across the chops. The antagonists have disentangled, Stokes has some distance, it’s time to dust off and go home. Ryan Two steps forward for this purpose with his palm raised in conciliatory style and says, ‘Settle down, stop.’ So Stokes punches him. It’s roughly his fifth punch overall, and he really winds up into this one. He misses so hard that he stumbles away into the shadows of the shop awnings along the road. Hales starts shouting for him to stop. Ryan Two backs into the street, still holding his palm up. Stokes closes on him from about five metres away, six large steps, to where Ryan Two is standing on his own. Stokes pushes him a couple of times, as Ryan Two keeps trying to placate him and saying ‘Stop.’ Stokes throws his sixth punch, largely missing as his target ducks. Ryan Two keeps pulling away and reversing, into the middle of the street now. Stokes follows him, grabbing his sleeve to drag him back. By this point Ryan One has found his feet and walked around behind his friend. Both of them are in the same line of sight for Stokes, and both are backing away. Stokes aims his seventh and his eighth punches, which Ryan Two tries to deflect, as Hales walks up behind Stokes to grab him. Stokes yanks away from his friend and switches to Ryan One instead, taking seven paces to grab him before throwing his ninth punch of the night. He grabs again; Ryan One blocks that arm and pushes himself back away from Stokes. Ryan Two again intercedes, putting himself between the two with his palms up and his arm extended. Stokes throws his tenth punch, a right-hander at the face of Ryan Two, then shoves him backwards. Ryan Two backs away once more, four paces. Stokes follows, steadies, lines up, then launches his strongest punch yet, his eleventh, a proper right hook from a solid base, one that cracks across the man’s head and gives him concussion. Ryan Two ends up flat on his back in the middle of the street, his hands still outstretched for a moment in useless protest until they twitch and drop to the blacktop. Stokes isn’t done. He once more shoves away the restraining Hales and follows Ryan One, who keeps backing away saying, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ Five more paces from Stokes before another blow at the man’s head. Kai and Billy are now standing over the poleaxed Ryan Two. The video ends, but seconds later Stokes will punch Ryan One hard enough to knock him out too, before off-duty cop Andrew Spure arrives on the scene to bring down the curtain. When the body-camera footage kicks in some minutes later, Stokes is in handcuffs but Ryan One is still laid out in the street. Ryan Two has regained consciousness, folded his shirt under his friend’s head and is asking police for an ambulance. ‘At this point, I felt vulnerable and frightened. I was concerned for myself and others.’ This was how Stokes described that sequence to the court. An elite athlete with years of gym work and training to snap a bat through the line of a ball with astounding power and precision, swinging fists as hard as he can at men with none of those advantages. Punching so hard that he breaks his hand, and repeatedly shoving away a friend so he can punch some more. Frightened and threatened by two targets shouting ‘Get back!’ and ‘Stop!’ The off-duty officer testified that Stokes ‘seemed to be the main aggressor or was progressing forward trying to get to’ Ryan One, who was ‘trying to back away or get away from the situation’. The student who filmed the video can be heard on the tape at one stage exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ and testified that it was because ‘I felt a little bit sorry about the lad that had been punched and it looked like he had his hands up’. That tallied with the prosecutor’s depiction of ‘a sustained episode of significant violence that left onlookers shocked at what was taking place’. The defendant stuck to his strategy. ‘No, my sole focus was to protect myself.’ All up, in the 33 seconds of footage after he falls over, Stokes takes 35 steps forward to keep hitting two men who keep trying to get away. Not once is he hit back. After the verdict, Stokes’ solicitor positioned him as the victim. It had been ‘an eleven-month ordeal for Ben … The jury’s decision fairly reflects the truth of what happened that night … He was minding his own business … It was only when others came under threat that Ben became physically engaged. The steps that he took were solely aimed at ensuring the safety of himself and the others present …’ The statement was impossibly self-righteous and self-absorbed. If there was anyone to feel sorry for it was Ryan Hale, the second of our two Ryans. He’s the one who emerged from the club with a friendly arm around the shoulder for Kai and Billy. He’s the one who interposed himself to end the fight, then kept putting himself back in the firing line, trying to calm an intimidating stranger while dodging blows. For his show of restraint he got laid out regardless, concussed in the street, then was issued a criminal charge equal to that of the man who hit him, and described in national media as a violent bigot in an untested story to support that man’s defence. Lawyers for Ryan Two made a more convincing post-trial statement, noting that Kai and Billy, ‘neither of whom were relied upon by the prosecution or the defence team for Mr Stokes, have taken the opportunity to speak with various media outlets about the alleged homophobic abuse that they received in the early hours of September 25. Mr Hale has passionately denied this allegation throughout the course of this case,’ it continued. ‘It is upsetting to Mr Hale that although he was acquitted, the accusation that he was the author of such abuse remains. Both Mr Hale and Mr Ali were knocked unconscious by Mr Stokes, and although Mr Stokes has been acquitted of an affray, Mr Hale struggles with the reasons why the Crown Prosecution Service did not treat him as a victim of an unlawful assault.’Good question. Avon and Somerset police were the investigating force, and they were frustrated by the decision. Ryan Two was filmed clearly not hurting anyone, but police were instructed by the CPS to proceed with a charge. Hales (the cricketer) was filmed fighting but ‘a decision was made at a senior level of the CPS’ not to proceed. Police expected Stokes to be charged with assault but the CPS declined. It doesn’t take a wild cynic to think that placing the same lukewarm charge on three men for vastly divergent behaviour might ensure that none would be convicted, even as the trial would maintain the pretence that a defendant of influential standing had not been given a free pass. A couple of years down the line, the original interview with Kai and Billy has disappeared. All traces have been scrubbed from The Sun website, its social media history, and even from the Wayback Machine internet archive. Given its headline of ‘homophobic thugs’ and text that names Ryan Two but not Ryan One, the libel liability isn’t hard to spot. Later interviews with Kai and Billy take the passive voice – they ‘suffered homophobic slurs outside a Bristol nightclub’. The article that was once claimed to exonerate brave Ben Stokes now links only to a missing content page, with a picture of a dropped ice-cream cone and the phrase ‘legal removal’ inserted into the web URL. In terms of consequences, Stokes missed one tour. When he resumed his career in January 2018, the Australians hadn’t yet ruined theirs. Their year-long bans looked much more stringent. But the Stokes case dragged on in other ways. With no criminal liability, the Australians confessed promptly enough for the sporting world to give them the full length of the lash. Their situation was ugly but there was closure. Stokes got stuck in legal stasis, unable to be fully backed or condemned. Instead his issue was always present, a browser full of open tabs that the ECB swore they would read any day now. Through 2018 Stokes was back but he wasn’t back, in the sunglasses and finger-guns sense. In his return one-day series he nearly cost England a match with 39 from 73 balls in Wellington. His first Test hit was a duck as England got rolled in Auckland for 58. At Trent Bridge while Stokes was injured, England posted a world record 481 against Australia. With Stokes three weeks later at the same ground they made 268. He crawled to 50 from 103, the second-slowest any Englishman had reached that milestone in 20 years. That span covered Alastair Cook’s whole career. It was apologetic batting, acting out responsibility via the scorecard. Stokes was creeping back into the team like he’d been kicked out in a blazing row and was hoping to tip-toe to the sofa. It was December 2018 before the ECB disciplinary committee ruled on him and Hales. In a ‘remarkable coincidence’, wrote Simon Heffer in The Telegraph, ‘the punishment both players faced in terms of bans from playing at international level was covered by the amount of games they had already missed when dropped by England’s selectors, in the furore that followed the incident’. The verdict compounded the omissions around the case by not addressing the violence at its heart. Nor did Stokes, apologising only ‘to my team-mates, coaches and support staff’, and then ‘to England supporters and to the public for bringing the game into disrepute’. The implicit next step was to rebuild that reputation. It might have been easier had his court defence not meant that he wasn’t game to admit any fault at all. It might have been easier if he or his advisers had been willing to change tack once the trial was done. Imagine a world where Stokes had stood outside court and apologised for overreacting, for the injuries he’d caused, and for the time and energy he had sucked out of other people’s lives. That would have been a show of responsibility beyond a scorecard. When the time came around to assess forgiveness, it might have meant forgiveness was deserved.
High all! I really recently fell in love with the Fallout Universe, with all its complexities and unique stories. In particular, I very much enjoy the subjectivity of interpretations of the games and their outcomes, and I wanted to create my own personal contribution by writing a story specifically set after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. The Courier is referenced once in passing and there's no mention of a next of kin for the Courier. The story is completely original with entirely unique characters that I've made and it takes place after a non-specific timeline in which Mr House wins the fight for the Mojave Desert. I wanted to share some of my work with my fellow Fallout fans and see what you think. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Beginning: After the guns fell silent during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, the world was forever changed. Mr House’s City State of New Vegas gained full sovereignty and control over the Mojave Desert, and his Securitron Army pushed the exhausted NCR and broken Legion out. In the following years, Mr House rapidly expanded the city of New Vegas, and reignited the production of old Pre-War Technology automobiles, bus lines, and a high speed train line appeared. The Strip itself expanded beyond the Three Families; Strip clubs, pubs, casinos, all you can eat buffets filling the area, with some residential apartments and houses now beginning to be sold to the highest bidder, just as it was in the old world. The expanded city of Vegas outside the Strip itself however is a slum, crime, inequality, and denigration is all but abundant, and unrest is growing. Following the removal of President Kimball, his Vice President Donald Watson took over and inherited a State in crisis. Faith in the government had rapidly deteriorated, and the economy of the NCR began to suffer as many relocated to the Strip to live a life of luxury and excess. The NCR is now a shadow of its former self, with Military Police now required to keep order on the streets of its towns and cities. The poverty level is rising. In the East, Caesar’s Legion too is changing, and not for the better. With the Western Campaign a failure by all accounts, resources dwindling, questions about the strength of their Leader Caesar are cropping up in the minds of those closest to him. By 2295, the pieces had fallen into place. The fate of these States and the people who uphold them is uncertain. One thing is for sure. Whatever happens, the Wasteland will be changed unlike it has ever been before. ‘I appreciate your respectful and restrained response to my contact. It is a pleasure to interact with the less agitated members of your State.’ Aminta barely heard Mr House, and instead stared out the windows of the Lucky 38. The skyline of the Strip extended seemingly forever, pushing away the surrounding darkness with neon light. Just beyond the city outskirts, the silhouette of Mr House’s newly created Launch Pad. It was one of five, and she could just see the other four, each slightly further away from the city than the last. She scrutinised them, and was struck by the boundless possibilities of such technology; the opportunities provided. How exciting it would be! Mr House’s voice then cracked her thoughts and brought back to the present. She listened, without comment. ‘Roughly 18 hours ago, a team of five extraordinarily skilled individuals ascended Hoover Dam from the base of the structure,’ The ostentatiously large screen in which Mr House’s face sat suddenly changed to show grainy footage. ‘This was captured by one of our cameras on the perimeter of the dam. I apologise for the bad quality, it has been surprisingly difficult obtaining improved camera lenses, and As you can see, they used some kind of Grapnel Launcher and ascended via the rope.’ On the screen, it was possible to just make out five distinct figures at the base of the dam. They were clearly dressed in dark clothing, though the quality was too poor and the camera was too far away to make out any of the fine details of the material. Aminta scrutinised the footage, watching intently as the five figures used an oblong object, reminiscent of a hunting rifle to fire a rope, or cord up the side of the dam; high enough to catch the top. The operator of the device then disconnected it from the gun, and pressed it into the ground. It appeared to stick. They then ascended the rope. The camera feed then cut to show three of the attackers subdue and restrain two security guards. Due to the light, it was clear that the clothing the criminals were wearing was Recon Armor, though there were no insignia or identifiable characteristics. The two men were then held down by two and clubbed across the face by the third member with the butt of a 10mm pistol. He then turned to the computer and retrieved something from his pocket. Then the screen went black. ‘At this point, at roughly 1:27 am a Trojan was fitted onto the system. It temporarily disabled all the security cameras in the sector. It was one of the strongest Trojans I’ve ever come across, but I was able to get the system back up and running within 15 minutes. Unfortunately we cannot recover any footage from the corrupted data files that detail how the robbers escaped. I hope you can understand why I decided to contact you.’ Aminta pondered to herself. Why would Mr House, a man who controlled Rockets and owned and governed an entire city and it’s enterprises, would need to contact the New California Republic for assistance in a robbery? From where they were standing, he appeared to be in a position any high ranking NCR official would kill for. She didn’t say anything. There had to be more to this meeting than what Mr House was implying. She looked to her left, trying to be casual. Sitting next to her with an overexaggerated grave look on his face was Political Officer Neville Dawson, and next to him was Dennis Crocker, former Ambassador to the Strip. They too were quiet, their faces frustratingly hiding what they were thinking. Not sure where to look, Aminta turned back to the screen Mr House’s caricature face was on. She had to say something. ‘Mr House, why exactly do you think these people targeted Hoover Dam? There are many casinos and places full of money on the New Vegas Strip. Is there anything of massive value at Hoover Dam?’ ‘Well Chief Aminta Marr, no, ostensibly speaking, there is nothing there of real value to anyone, unless they have the ability to take and control the Dam and source it’s hydraulic generated electricity,’ ‘Then why would someone do this?’ Aminta said curtly. She tensed up, not meaning to sound dismissive. ‘Well Aminta, they did take one thing from what we've deduced,’ Mr House said, appearing to ignore her tone. ‘And what was that Mr House?’ Neville cut in. He was leaning forward, hands clasped tightly together. He was trying - and failing - to ease the tension in the room. ‘Well, before I contacted you Neville, and to answer your question Aminta, I ran through my storage records from 2285 to the present. I had Mr Harvey Shwarze, my ‘Representative in Government’ review them in paper form in our archives. Three things - completely inconsequential things mind you, were missing. Three Platinum Chips.’ ‘Three Platinum Chips?’ Neville said concertedly, as if he knew exactly what Mr House was talking about. ‘That’s right. It’s a data storage device, well it was a data storage device. Designed by me before the Great War of 2077. Perhaps once upon a time this would’ve been valuable to somebody, but after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam I had access to all kinds of ruined facilities all over the Mojave to reform to working order. I began reprinting hundreds of Platinum Chips which were variations of the original Platinum Chip. They continuously upgrade and encrypt my software to prevent any outside programmers from accessing my highly sensitive data. I have no idea what a group of hooligans would want with three. I can easily replace them, and since they’re only usable on my systems, well they would simply be useless.’ ‘Perhaps they wanted to sell them,’ Aminta proposed. It wasn’t impossible, she thought. People pay top dollar for things with perceived value, isn’t that the cardinal rule of the Strip? ‘To whom?’ Mr House replied. ‘The point still stands. Nobody has any use for them but me.’ ‘Well, perhaps they thought they were valuable.’ Dennis remarked. ‘In any case, they will soon learn they are not valuable.’ ‘If you have no problems with this Mr House,’ Aminta cut in. ‘Why do you need us here? The NCR has its own problems, big problems, and from where we’re standing, you seem to have everything under control.’ ‘That’s precisely the issue!’ Mr House exclaimed. ‘The very fact they managed to steal anything from me at all is deeply disconcerting! I spent days and nights running statistical simulations for all possible scenarios in and formulated the best plans for countering every scenario I came across!’ ‘I guess my point is, I do not understand, in any capacity, why you, YOU of all people would need to call us for assistance in a matter that you - whether intentional or not - have spent the last fives minutes telling us it isn’t an issue.’ The room fell quiet. Aminta pulled her hands back from the table and into her lap, and looked down at them, pretending to be occupied analysing them. She had exposed the true, unspoken meaning of this meeting, and they all knew it. She bit her lip. Dennis wiped the sweat off his face. Neville breathed in deeply, as though he was going to speak. But Mr House did first. ‘As I understand it, the NCR has fallen on hard times since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. My Lieutenant after the battle was admittedly curt in regards to handling our relations, and since then it seems your economy is really struggling with extremely poor unemployment and satisfaction levels,’ Mr House paused. Neville looked at Aminta with a look of understanding, and regret but he didn’t say anything. Mr House was right. Of course he was right. ‘It just so happens that while it may look from the outset I’m doing well, with the occasional launch of one of my experimental rockets, crime in Greater New Vegas is extraordinarily high. To be clear, the Strip is not, but the extended city state with the newly constructed buildings - those areas are. I want to make a proposition for the mutual benefit of the NCR, and New Vegas. Neville, think carefully about what I’m about to say.’ Neville spoke up. ‘Alright, I’m all ears.’ ‘Dennis Crocker here can once again become the Ambassador to the Strip, and the NCR can once again have an Embassy. I will also give the NCR access to some of my technologies to help your state re-stabilize after everything that’s happened. In return however, I would like Aminta here, who is your Chief and Commander of both your military and normal police forces, to assist my Securitrons in patrolling Outer Vegas. Securitrons don’t make the best police, and security guards are in short supply and are not equipped, in any sense, to be police. I also would like your help in tracking down the culprits of this robbery; that being an extension of the aforementioned policing stipulation. Such a breach of security cannot happen again. Neville Dawson, I’m willing to sign a treaty pertaining to these terms, or any terms the NCR may propose, unless of course it does mutually benefit both states.’ Aminta felt her twang strike her deep in her heart. For years, the NCR Police Force had been absorbed into the Military Police Unit, and they could barely contain black market dealings of Chems and military grade weaponry on the streets of NCR’s cities. They did not have the resources or power Mr House seemed to think they did. For nearly 3 years straight she had been bombarded with evidence of killings by her own subordinates, illegal incarcerations, and illicit behavior between colleagues within her own chain of command, with no power to rehabilitate or prosecute those involved. Meanwhile, those that had the money to escape fled to New Vegas, desperate to find a life of comfort. It was possible that through re-establishing trade and mutual respect with Mr House, they could rebuild the NCR’s respectability on the international and internal level. She found herself hoping the treaty would be signed. ‘This... is a huge proposition. I hope you can understand the overwhelming nature of what you’re telling us, it’ll take a bit for us to come to a conclusion.’ Neville exhaled, as though he had been holding it for the last minute. ‘I understand.’ Mr House responded. ‘Maybe I ask,’ Donnie piped up. ‘What specific kinds of technology will you provide to the NCR?’ Mr House ran down a checklist. ‘Vehicles. Remade pre-war cars. Excavation machines. Cement mixers. Would provide jobs and improve your infrastructure in the process, whilst also giving me business and improving the situation here. Mutually beneficial for both sides.’ ‘I see.’ Aminta struggled to contain her happiness. She had become a police officer to enforce safety and protect those who abide by the law. This was a way back to such operations, in which she could help those in need, rather than sit idly while their situation worsened. ‘I’ll also be willing to give 10% of the electricity produced by Hoover Dam to the NCR. It produces more than I need.’ Mr House offered. Dennis shifted his weight, and opened his mouth. It was a second before anything came out. ‘15% would be great, if possible.’ ‘Done.’ Mr House concluded. ‘Well, we’ll definitely have to confer this back to President Watson. As previously said by Mr Dawson, this is a huge offer.’ ‘I understand. Aminta, I can only hope you also support this.’ Aminta smiled. ‘I am willing to establish a NCR Police Force here in New Vegas, and assist in establishing prosperity and stability, for the benefit of both states.’ ‘Excellent. I’ll arrange for a Taxi to take you back to the border.’ ***** Nobody said a word in the ride in the elevator down to the entrance of the Lucky 38. There was a perpetual sense of being watched, and listened to, and Aminta supposed they probably were. She sensed from the stiffness of Donnie and Neville’s postures they felt the same way. As the three left through the ground level of the building, the desolate casino indicated a time long past, preserved in pristine condition yet uncannily lifeless; inhabited only by robots. Aminta felt a shiver flow throughout her body, prompting her to hurry outside. Upon exiting, Aminta was greeted by the fantastic lighting she had seen from the Lucky 38. Buildings stretched high into the now night sky, perpetually lit up and calling for you to spend a few short hours in their luxurious suites and lose all the money you have without knowing it. She had visited the Strip a couple of times before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Back then, whilst still grand, its exterior walls felt cobbled-together, layered pieces of steel to preserve what glory the pre-war days had. Now, the Strip felt open, almost a complete return to complete pre-war glory, though there was no way of her knowing what such a time looked like. Polished, beetle like cars with extravagant interwoven pieces of silver and gold making up their hubcaps cluttered the road, filled with nicely dressed young women chattering incessantly. Boys, ranging from teenagers to old men stumbled around, drunk and happy, their legs falling beneath them as though they were wet noodles. To the left, the Ultra Luxe Casino hotel stood at the far end of the street, intoxicatingly ostentatious and alluring for any hoping to climb the social ladder, despite the many rumors of cannibalism attempting to tarnish the brand. The fountain outside the front sprayed sparkling water into the night air which caught the light of the strip and reflected it like the jewels the building it was in front of was embroidered in. However, Aminta was not taken by the hotel, and watched two NCR troopers, still in their military uniforms be forced to dance in front of a crowd of onlookers. They were pushed and shoved as they struggled to dance, their arms and legs barely keeping to any rhythm as they fell to the ground, vomiting a putrid yellow substance onto the asphalt. She looked away in disgust and embarrassment for the two men. A man in an expensive looking suit and bowtie greeted the three. Behind him stood a long polished black car. ‘Shall I take you to the crossing point?’ ‘Yes.’ Donnie answered. Aminta and Neville followed his lead. He had more experience on the Strip than the majority of the tourists around them. She started the car once they were all inside, the engine barely kicking as it began to drive. Aminta marvelled at its power, it’s sleekness, at the strength and confidence of its movement and the luxury of it’s exotic wood plated interior. The chauffeur drove to the large South Gate of the Strip, passing multitudinous buildings of similar grandeur and spectacle, all the same though uniquely different, until they all blurred into one mix of different colours and moving forms. The chauffeur leaned out of the side window, showed an identification pass to a Securitron, and the gate opened. Aminta’s car was the only car that left. As the gate closed, the car picked up speed and tore through the rest of Vegas. Immediately outside the Strip, the buildings were noticeably more dilapidated. Aminta watched as the varied prosperity of the Strip curtailed rapidly into a mess of buildings, barely recognisable as residential or industrial, though they were unmistakably new creations. She almost didn’t notice it at first, but they were all the same. Row after row of buildings with the same geometric exterior, though placed at odd angles to each other, as if a child had been playing with them and haphazardly threw them into where they now stood. As the car moved further and further away from the Strip, lights in these buildings became scarce, and the brickwork became exposed to reveal pipelines and shreds of electrical appliances, some still spitting sparks. When the light of the Strip was nothing more than a flicker of light on the night horizon, the copied buildings were replaced with houses, roofs sagging, walls crumbling. As the car zipped passed, Aminta caught wisps of figures; people moving about the ruins and the darkness like ghosts, until they passed the last house, and all that could be seen was the night sky and desert shrubbery.
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Host to all manner of slots and other games, Omni Slots stands among the most interesting online casinos on the Internet. This brand is owned and operated by DialInvest International N.V., a Curacao-based company that is also licensed by the same government to provide online gambling services to the general public. The operator has been active since 2015 but it has already distinguished itself from the competition, earning critical acclaim from both critics and fans. The excellence of this casino is partly due to the wonderful selection of games, available to all who register and partly to the worthwhile promotions which users seem to love. Moreover, this online casino accepts payment via a variety of popular transaction services, including credit cards, eWallets, prepaid cards and others. Users can also rely on high-quality customer support during all hours of the day. All of this and more awaits those who register. In this review, we will discuss all important aspects and features of this operator and give you some insight why this online casino is so beloved by users.
Software Provider
The games on offer are of the highest importance for any online casino and with so many of them trying to outdo each other, the companies running them have little resources to spare for the development of new games. This is where software providers come in. These are companies dedicated to the creation of online casino software, more specifically games. This operator has entered a partnership with some of the most respected software providers in the industry, whose games have been judged to be of the highest quality. Going into detail, we notice games from companies such as Microgaming,NetEnt, Betsoft, Amatic Industries and several others. Each of the companies mentioned has had a substantial presence in the market for many years and their product is nothing if not excellent. By choosing to deal with so many software providers at once, the operator has secured a massive selection of games for its player base and users get to reap all of the benefits. In terms of quantity, we can safely say that you will need a lot of time to simply browse through the selection, let alone to play through it. >>Register Now and Get Free Bonus<<
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Available Games
As we have already mentioned above, the gaming library present here is truly exemplary and the sheer number of games is staggering. However, do not let the name of the casino fool you. There is much more here than slot games. Among the selection, you will find plenty of high-quality slots, table games, video poker and more. Since the gaming portfolio is so large, we can safely say that just about everyone will be satisfied with what is on offer.
Slots
Slots enjoy a major following in the online casino world, with millions of players indulging in the entertainment that is spinning the reels. This game genre is known for its amazing diversity and the sheer recreational value that it brings to the table. Slots come in many shapes and sizes, featuring all manner of themes and aesthetics, making them accessible to a wide audience. Moreover, playing slots will give you immense entertainment and excitement the likes of which you have never seen. The operator is host to a number of very popular games such as the Twighlight-esque title, Immortal Romance, Twin Spin, Warlords: Crystals of Power, Starburst, Pharao’s Riches, Sizzling 777 and many more.
Blackjack
Among the more popular table games, we come across blackjack. This casino game is one of the most engaging of them out there, offering players the opportunity to have the time of their lives. Blackjack is unlike most other games featured at casinos, both online and land-based. Whereas most other games are based on luck, blackjack rewards those who know the game and understand the rules. With a relatively low house edge, blackjack is as fair as a casino game ever was. The presentation of the games is nothing to scoff at either. Modern games feature high definition graphics, making the game come to life, while typical classy music plays in the background, fully immersing you in the casino atmosphere. This online casino features many of these kinds of games, more specifically Single Deck Blackjack, Punto Banco, European Blackjack, American Blackjack, and other similar titles.
Roulette
Roulette has long been considered the face of casino gambling, being an inseparable part of any gambling hall. Logically, this trend continues to this day in virtual casinos across the globe. This game comes in many styles both classical and new ones, each slightly different than the previous. Today we as users get to enjoy a wide range of games like never before. Moreover, roulette is suitable for most kinds of players, from the high rollers to casual users, who wager their spare change. Additionally, there are many betting options to choose from, with odds varying between 1:1 to 35:1. Here, you will be spoiled for choice where roulette is concerned, with a variety of options such as VIP European Roulette, Multi Wheel Roulette, Zoom Roulette, Advanced Roulette, and many more await you.
Video Poker
Video poker is another fan-favorite genre and relatively new to the casino scene. Being introduced in the 1970s, this game combines elements from slots and poker to form a one-of-a-kind experience. The selection of video poker games here can be considered somewhat scarce, but what is available is nothing but the best. Here you will find some of the most beloved styles of the genre, all available at the click of a button. With games such as All American Poker, Deuces Wild, Bonus Poker, Poker Pursuit, or Jacks or Better you cannot go wrong.
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Live dealer games are a relatively recent addition to the online casino industry. They were developed in the second half of the previous decade and have been going strong ever since they were released to the general public. This type of game is highly immersive due to the live video stream, featuring a professional dealer hosting a game. Every action you take will be directly reflected on the screen and you will start to think that you are playing at an actual land-based venue. At this particular online casino you will have the opportunity to play some of the most popular live dealer titles such as Live Blackjack, Live Roulette, Live Casino Hold’em, or Live Baccarat. >>Register Now and Get Free Bonus<<
Supported Devices
The operator has put in a lot of effort making the online casino to be as accessible as possible. For this reason, you can load up the virtual casino on just about any computer with a reliable Internet connection. Basically, all you have to do is go to the casino website and you will be able to play any of the available games without any preparation beforehand. The instant play interface allows you to start any games directly within the window of your browser. However, please keep in mind that you need to have a relatively modern Internet browser since it needs to support Java and Flash Player. As it happens, all commercial browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, etc., come with this functionality built-in, so unless you are running ancient software, you should have no issue in this respect. Additionally, there is also the option to use your mobile device, e.g. a smartphone or a tablet, to carry out your gaming sessions. The online casino has been very thorough in designing the mobile interface, allowing users to carry out all of their usual activities without ever experiencing any issues. The mobile version of the casino has been adapted to fit on any and all screen sizes, just like the games have been tweaked to be playable on a smartphone or tablet device. As a result, you will be able to enjoy a seamless transition from desktop to mobile. On your mobile device, you will still be able to access all of the usual features such as banking, customer support, promotional offers, etc. >>Register Now and Get Free Bonus<<
Omni Slots Casino Payment Methods
Since Omni Slots is an online casino you will not be able to use hard cash to make a deposit. Instead, you will have to make use of one of the many supported online payment services. These are varied and each one will suit your needs differently, but all of them will get the job done. The operator accepts players from a multitude of countries and therefore works in multiple currencies. At this online casino, you can deposit in EUR, NOK, USD and CAD. Credit cards are a common payment method, not only at online casinos but in general. They give you the opportunity to use your funds for any online service and that includes this one. You can use several of the most popular credit card brands when making a deposit at this online casino, more specifically, Visa, MasterCard, and Diners Club. When using a credit card to deposit, you will notice how the transaction goes through immediately and there is no downtime. Withdrawals, however, are only possible for Visa cardholders. Another popular deposit method are eWallets. These services allow you to store and move money in an online balance and can be used on any website that supports them. In the case of this online casino, you can utilize Skrill, Neteller and Przelewy24. When you make a deposit using any of these payment solutions, the transaction will clear through instantly. Withdrawals are also possible and will usually take up to 2 business days at most to clear. Prepaid services are highly preferred by online gamblers due to the anonymity they provide and little setup that is required. Paysafecard is the primary method to use here and you can get one at many retail locations across the globe. Unfortunately, this payment method only goes one way and can be used exclusively for deposits. Bitcoin has recently risen to high popularity on the Internet. This decentralized online currency will provide you with maximum anonymity and quick transaction times. This virtual casino accepts payment via Bitcoin, but it does not offer withdrawals in the same fashion. >>Register Now and Get Free Bonus<<
Omni Slots Casino Customer Support
Customer support is a major aspect of any online service and we are happy to report that this operator has employed a highly competent and dedicated team of experts who will assist you in any way possible should the need arise. There are several different ways that you can contact agents, live chat being the most convenient. This system will allow you to reach the customer service team in a manner of minutes and you can chat with them in real-time. All that will be required of you is to submit your username, name, email and your question. Alternatively, you could always explain your problem via email. To do this, simply click on the support button located on the lower right corner of your screen and select the email option. From then on, you will be asked to enter your name, email address and your question or issue. The support team strives to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours of receiving them and so far it has not had any problems in that regard. >>Register Now and Get Free Bonus<<
Licensing and Restricted Countries
Online gambling may be considered by some individuals to be a shady practice, run by scammers and cheats. This could not be further from the truth. All over the world, there are government institutions responsible for the oversight of online gambling operations. These regulatory bodies audit each company and hold them to high standards, thereby ensuring that everything is above board. In this case, we see a Curacao-issued license to operate. The Government of Curacao is known for its high demands on companies and the rigidness of its audits. Any company in possession of a Curacao certificate can be fully trusted to provide a safe and fair gambling experience. So far, online casinos licensed by Curacao have had a great track record and this particular operator is no exception to this rule.
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FortuneJack Bitcoin Casino Review
FortuneJack stocks games by a plethora of top developers and has hundreds of titles to choose from. It also has some of the industry’s best online casino bonuses, all of which are targeted towards players who use Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and other cryptocurrencies. In addition to a vast online casino, stocked with some of the best iGaming titles around, FortuneJack has a sports book. This sports book made its introduction in late 2019 and by the time it was ready to be launched in early 2020, it ran into a roadblock in the shape of the coronavirus crisis. As a result, it was delayed somewhat and at the time of writing the sports book is still not as active or action-packed as we expected it to me. But that will no doubt change and if you’re reading this FortuneJack review in 2021 or later, there’s a good chance it will be up and running. There is also a dedicated Dice Games section, where players can place bets on the outcome of dice games. This is the ideal section for fans of games like Craps and Sic Bo, and while there are other dice games in other parts of FortuneJack casino, this is where you should be if you want a dedicated and complete dice gaming experience.
FortuneJack Bonuses
For now, this FortuneJack review will focus entirely on the online casino aspects of this site, looking at everything from its slot machines and table games to its bonuses, payment methods, and more. The question is, how does this Bitcoin casino compare to other top cryptocurrency casinos we have reviewed? FortuneJack has a generous Welcome Bonus to entice new players into the casino. This bonus offers a huge 5 BTCs and 250 Free Spins as part of a substantial Welcome Package. This is a great bonus to get you going but it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as the promotional material might have you believe, so make sure you keep the following in mind:
You can qualify for 25 Free Spins just for registering. No deposit is required to collect this bonus.
Your first deposit returns a matched deposit bonus of 110% up to 1.5 BTC, or the equivalent in your chosen cryptocurrency. You need to deposit a minimum of 0.002 BTC to qualify for this.
250 Free Spins are also provided along with your first deposit, providing the minimum deposit amount of 0.5 BTC is met. It’s worth noting that this minimum is higher than the minimum required for the deposit bonus, so it is possible to qualify for one and not the other.
All bonuses have a wagering requirement of 40x, which means the funds need to be wagered 40 times before they can be withdrawn.
To reach the full 5 BTCs, players will need to make three more deposits. These additional deposits have a matched rate of 50%, 50%, and 100% respectively.
The bonuses outlined above are only valid for the FortuneJack online casino and cannot be used to place sports bet. However, there are separate bonuses available for sports bettors, including a 100% matched free bet and a money-back special. As always, the sports bonuses are not as generous as the casino bonuses as the profit margins are much smaller and betting sites simply can’t afford to give away several Bitcoins. Another point worth mentioning is FortuneJack’s loyalty bonus. Loyalty schemes are pretty rare on modern online casinos, much rarer than they should be, but they are more common on Bitcoin casinos. In FortuneJack’s loyalty club, players are rewarded every time they play, getting up to 20% cash back on the money they spend in the casino and benefiting from regular reload bonuses and other rewards. Like all good loyalty clubs, it has several levels and the higher you climb, the higher your bonuses and rewards will be. >>Click Here For Bonus<<
Highlights
Cryptocurrency Online Casino
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FortuneJack Casino Games and Software
Several big-name providers keep the FortuneJack games room well stocked with slots, table games, Live Casino games, and more. These providers include:
NetEnt: The developer of classic, game-changing titles such as Gonzo’s Quest, Starburst, and many other player favourites.
Betsoft: If it uses 3D graphics and features amazing visuals, there’s a good chance it was created by Betsoft. This developer has created titles like The Slotfather, A Night in Paris, 2 Million BC, Max Quest, Spinfinity Man, and more.
Microgaming: One of the oldest and the best developers. It’s from Microgaming that we get progressive jackpot slots and the Rolling Reels feature, as well as countless other innovations.
Yggdrasil: Creators of the Vikings Go Berzerk series and one of the fastest-growing iGaming developers in the industry right now.
Quickspin: A Playtech-owned company that has created a host of top real money slots.
And this is just a small selection of the developers offering games for the FortuneJack Bitcoin casino. There are over a dozen other top developers, including Evolution Gaming, which is where FortuneJack’s gets its Live Casino games. Evolution Gaming is the world’s best Live Casino brand, and that’s no exaggeration. Evolution Gaming has more games streaming from more live studios than any other developer. This is where titles like Lightning Dice, Dreamcatcher, Monopoly Live, Deal or no Deal Live, and Football Studio were born. >>Click Here For Bonus<<
FortuneJack Casino Payment Methods
FortuneJack players can deposit and withdraw using a selection of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Monero, and Ethereum. All payments are processed following a pending time of no more than 12 hours, and because FortuneJack only accepts fast-paying cryptocurrencies, this means that the money will be in your account within hours of withdrawing. There are no withdrawal limits on FortuneJack, so you can deposit as much as you want and withdraw as much as you need. The only downside is that FortuneJack doesn’t allow payments made with traditional methods. But this is a cryptocurrency casino on a cryptocurrency casino review site, so we’re certainly not going to mark them down for that.
Limits and Licenses
FortuneJack can be played on mobile and desktop; it is licensed in Curacao and players can choose between English and Japanese as a site language. There is a Provably Fair section where players can find information on the site’s security, safety, and fairness. All of the games are 100% secure and fair, with low house edges and high payouts. If you want to play the best games and have the best chance of success when you do, this is the section for you. You can find the link in the menu at the top of the homepage. Last but not least, FortuneJack has something known as Jack’s Club, which is a premium, VIP loyalty club. If you qualify to be part of this club, you will get your own VIP manager and can benefit from more generous bonuses and rewards. >>Click Here For Bonus<<
Conclusion
FortuneJack is a beautifully designed online casino that has a lot to offer Bitcoin gamblers. All new players can collect a big Welcome Bonus, explore a vast selection of games, and if they have an issue, FortuneJack’s customer support team is one of the best in the business. We couldn’t recommended this cryptocurrency casino highly enough!
iI was so looking forward to this game, like a kid waiting for Santa Clause, so not a kid anymore. Witcher 3 Enhanced is in my top 3 RPGs, I really wanted this to be huge success, and for the gaming company- PR, to win lots of awards again but wow - how did it take ten years to release this? A metarific score of 9.0? I guess reviewers are bought and paid for these days. Even now, with more and more critiques speaking up and getting louder and louder, said reviewers toss all the problems in the old gen tech bucket. That's crack level nutso. There are very real problems with this game on a multitude of levels that have nothing to do with how good your rig is:
I've now started toons in all three life paths, no tangible, meaningful difference between them in terms of my moment to moment experience in game. Zero.
We were sold (as the OP notes with source references) walking into a world that simply does not exist. Early in the game, your first jackie ride, very immersive, felt like the PR games of old. And there are few of those moments, but very few. There are next to no cool casinos, bars, strip clubs; when you do bump into one, you cannot interact with anything- no gambling, none of games in the few bars Ive gotten into have interaction. The world is basically zombie sims. 90% of the doors are locked, it has a strong theme park vs open world feel, on and on I could go. Why lie to your most loyal customer base? Why hype what does not exist?
If I throw a grenade, there is a 50 50 chance that will kill my ability to then use any of my weapons. My weapons disappear, the bad guys keep shooting. Sometimes messing with my inventory eventually gets them to populate, sometimes not and I have to exit the game, losing all my progress, so Im constantly saving. I even got these weird menu on time wherein all my weapons were suddenly epics, even though they weren't and didn't have those stats.
In one of the early theme park quests, the baddie I dropped- dead as a door nail, and yet he scream all Scarface like to come get him as I move on and complete the quest.
What AI? Where is it? You had to work your ass off to get good at combat in W3E, in this game- there is no combat AI, there is not citizens of the city AI, there is not car AI. Everybody and I do mean everybody is pissed off and has maybe a line of dialog.
Some of the NPC conversations have been cool, I like how they developed Jackie, others, but the choices even tell me when to stand and sit, that's not open world, that's ultra theme park. I'm being taken on a guided tour, the game holding my hand. In W3E I remember reviewers and trailer talking about - "you can look in any direction, see something ya like, and go there" and that is exactly what they delivered. Side quests never felt like side quests, and they certainly never felt like WoW - go kill ten of something. Many side quests, especially the ones that are the bread and butter ones, are as flat and dull as the people that populate this world.
Hope on over the Cyberpunks reddit where people are finally speaking up, and doing a great job of documenting, in great detail, the many broken aspects of the game. I documented maybe 10% of the issues Ive had playing the game. I feel like I just got ripped off by a gaming company (CPR) that I passionately believed in, and the reviewers are a part of the con, which is just sad. Patches can fix some of the tech bugs I note, which should happen like yesterday, but the deeper mechanics cannot be fixed with a patch. I have nothing against those that are ignoring all these very real issues, but this is like an Alpha, not even a Beta version of this poorly executed, mindless game as it stands today. If they own these issues, find a way to somehow fix them, then I'll be the first in line to cheer them on. As already noted, I truly wanted this to be successful, for them and me, but ugh- its like the horrid first few years of SWTOR which I was in both the Alpha and Beta.
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PayPal Family & Friends or Venmo only! Comment first before sending a PM. All codes are tested and will be tested again before sending; all sales are final, no refunds or adjustments. Please use the excel chart below to review & verify redemption options: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZsJkCX4DIv2oeCKQ7zp2ArkR1qKEXCUuCMBbUtHtmh4/edit#gid=0 4K Movies (Redeemable on Movies Anywhere): 21 Jump Street- $7 22 Jump Street- $7 Aquaman- $7 Avengers Endgame- $7 Beetlejuice- $8 Black Hawk Down- $6 Casino- $7 Godzilla- $7 Gremlins- $7 Inception- $7 Iron Man 2- $6 Iron Man 3- $6 Justice League- $6 San Andreas- $6 Scarface- $6 The Meg- $6 The Revenant- $8 Wonder Woman- $6 Additional 4K Movies: (See Chart for Redeem Options) A Quiet Place- $6 Gladiator- $7 Halloween 2018- $7 (Canada Code) Interstellar- $7 Mission Impossible Fallout- $7 Terminator 2 Judgement Day- $5 The Dark Tower- $6 Transformers The Last Knight- $7 HD Movies & Shows(See Chart for Other Redeem Options) Deadpool- (MA/HD)- $3 E.T.- (MA/HD)- $4 Edward Scissorhands- (MA/HD)- $3 Elysium- (HD)- $3 Fight Club- (MA/HD)- $3 Friday The 13th: Killer Cut (Extended)- (MA/HD)- $4 Fury- (MA/HD)- $4 Ghostbusters I- (MA/HD)- $3 Independence Day- (MA/Itunes/Vudu/HD)- $3 IT (Original)- (MA/HD)- $3 Jurassic Park- (MA/HD)- $3 Jurassic Park: The Lost World- (MA/HD)- $3 Jurassic Park 3- (MA/HD)- $3 Jurassic World- (MA/HD)- $3 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom- (MA/HD)- $4 King Kong (2005)- (MA/HD)- $3 Now You See Me- (HD)- $3 Paul- (HD)- $3 Pitch Black (Unrated Directors Cut) (MA/HD)- $4 Predator- (MA/HD)- $3 Space Jam- (MA/HD)- $3 Split- (MA-/HD)- $3 The Bourne Identity - (MA/HD)- $3 The Bourne Supremacy- (MA/HD)- $3 The Bourne Ultimatum - (MA/HD)- $3 The Bourne Legacy- (MA/HD)- $3 The Witch- (Canada Redeem)- (Itunes/HD)- $3 Transformers: Age Of Extinction- (HD/4K)- $5 Watchmen (HBO Series) (HD)- $10
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What is the minimum required age to play?
The minimum required age is 18 years without exceptions.
Is there a practice mode or just for fun mode available at the casino?
Everyone is free to register and play some games to test the website or simply have fun, but in order to start earning some cash you need to make your first deposit.
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Does Emojino Casino accept Bitcoin transfers?
No, it does not. You cannot make your deposits and withdraw your earnings on this online casino using Bitcoin.
Is there a friend referral program?
Emojino Casino does not offer a friend referral program, but there is an affiliates program so if you are a webmaster, you can join the program and earn commissions for the players that you bring to the casino using the marketing material provided to you on the affiliates program.
Does Emojino Casino have a gaming license?
Yes, it does. It is regulated and licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority so you are always protected by the law when making transactions or claiming your bonuses and promotions.
In Which platforms is the casino available?
It is available on PC, Mac, Android and iOS devices.
Does Emojino Casino have Christmas bonuses?
Emojino Casino has daily Christmas bonuses and they have an advent calendar on their website. Just checkout their bonus page to get more details. >>Claim Free Spins Bonus Here<<
Club World Casino offers a decent selection of payment options. For depositing players can use Credit Card, ECO Card, Neteller, Skrill, Instadebit and Click2Pay, while for withdrawing all of the listed methods for depositing are allowed, plus you can choose between Wire Transfer and Check by Courier. The minimum withdrawal is $20 while the maximum withdrawal per week is $5,001. Players cannot Trusted Club World Casino review, including free spins, bonuses, games, complaints, and real player reviews and ratings. Club World Casino Review. Club World Casinos established in 2005 is an RTG-powered online casino that features an extensive bonus program, a responsive customer support and a wide selection of top-level video slots. The casino is independently audited for fairness and security and provides a trouble-free gaming experience to the most demanding players. General features. A player has two Last Updated : July 2017. Club World casino are part of the Club World group who are associated with AffPower and have been caught detagging players. Club World Casino processes deposits weekly, with limits of up to $3,000 on most withdrawal methods. They have a 24 hour customer support team, which can be accessed by phone, e-mail or live chat. All of these features have made this one of the best casinos, and our review of Club World Casino even found that their payouts break the 90% mark on most of their games. Club World Online Casino Review. Club World Online Casino. Website: clubworldcasinos.com: US Welcome?: Yes: Best Bonus: 100% up to $777: Player Rating: Part of the Club World group of online casinos, Club World uses Real Time Gaming software to offer over 100 unique casino game titles to customers all over the world. Club World is popular because it allows American gamblers to play their Review. 39 comments on Club World Casino. Michael B. on April 28, 2017. I’ve been playing Club World Casino for several years and truly enjoy the entertainment. I’ve been receiving courier checks from my winnings and never had a problem until last week. I cashed the check on April 18th and on April 27th the bank (out of Canada) refused to pay as they told my bank they had no funds. How can Club World Casino Review "Fall from grace - faceplant of the year" Accepted. Rogue. Casinomeister's Verdict. Rogue Casino. Recommended Casinos. Backstabbers. If a company is willing to screw over its advertising partners – some of whom had been working with this group for over a decade – there is no guarantee it won’t do the same with its players. These guys are frauds and lack all sense Club World Casino is owned by the Club World Casino (CWC) Group. If you are logging in from the US, you will be directed to Club USA. This group has been operating since 2004 with Club World/Club USA on the scene since 2009. In terms of a Real Time Gaming casino, you can't get much better than this group with good customer service and frequent If reputation is important to you, then Club World Casino is a good option. This is the flagship casino for the Club World Casino Group, an organization that has been in the business of Internet gambling since 2004. Despite the fact that Club World has been around for a decade now, there have been relatively few complaints from players, and in most cases, any issues that have come up over the years have been resolved very quickly by their professional customer support staff. They also run
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