|
|
Famous for taking gambles, whether it's taking on major UK record companies and airlines at their own game or attempting /setting world records in balloons, planes and speedboats, it's little surprise that Richard Branson has extended his Virgin empire into online gaming. Virgin is a great British brand that established its reputation in the 70's by providing great entertainment and doing things differently, so has it carried through these envied qualities to its 21 st Century online casino? Is it a number one hit or a lead balloon?
First impressions are very good, with a bright, clear layout to the Welcome Page - there's actually a lot of information displayed but it doesn't overwhelm the first-timer and it's very easy to assimilate what's on offer and where to click to find out more. For those returning to play this online casino, login and game selection is also neatly achieved here. The casino games are broken down into four areas - tables /video poker. Keno, slots and instant win games - which we also found a helpful aid to speedy navigation. The look and feel is one very much biased towards mass appeal and 'fun', rather than exclusivity and 'serious', hushed gambling; it also feels distinctly less macho than some rival online casinos, so we can imagine Virgin having greater appeal for players who aren’t turned on by such bells and whistles as glamourpuss virtual croupiers and casino managers.
click here to play at Virgin now
The games themselves are from the well-respected WagerWorks stable and are all non-download, simply requiring users have the ubiquitous Macromedia Flash software installed on their computer. This also promises greater multi-platform support as Flash is available for far more flavours of operating system than just Windows, but it was on this issue that we encountered our first hiccup with this online casino. Firing up the Greencloth Apple Mac to test compatibility we found we simply couldn't get the games to load! Our frustration got worse when switching browsers from Safari to Explorer didn’t help either. Being dedicated to the cause we switched again to Firefox and - hurrah - we had lift off. This is possibly a small criticism since Mac users are probably in the minority of potential customers (and Virgin don’t explicitly claim to support Mac in their FAQs either) but it's something we'd like to see fixed where Flash is the software engine of the games.
While we're having a whinge we also thought the triumph of Virgin's home page navigation wasn't followed through to the game selection pages. Intuitively clicking the game name or icon doesn't actually load the game, but calls up a panel to the right of the page giving more details and the options to play for real of for fun. If, like us, your browser window wasn't / isn't set wide enough you can miss this panel and simply assume the casino is broken as nothing seems to be happening. Once you've discovered this frankly odd quirk of navigation everything is peachy but we think it's unnecessarily obtuse and might foil a newcomer's attempts to play this casino.
click here to play at Virgin now
If you are not foiled by the foibles mentioned above, then you should really enjoy the attractive selection of free and real money games on offer here. Whilst the level of detail may not be quite as rich as other casinos' download games, the gameplay is not compromised at all and the audio and visual quality is still excellent, giving users an engagingly authentic casino experience. The graphics are reasonably smooth and there's a more than acceptable compromise between making the games look photo-realistically lush and the speed of loading in our opinion. If a 'quick' game is also a reason you're drawn to online casinos that use non-download products then there's also a "turbo' button to speed up deals and spins to help you squeeze more betting in.
Promotional incentives to play with Virgin Casino (beyond the usual sign-up bonus) are attractive, making good use of the brand's other products to offer very worthwhile non-cash prizes. Furthermore, if you like to travel, the Reward Points you earn by playing here can be converted to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles which is a novel, and useful, option. At the time of this review, progressive jackpots don’t appear to be a significant feature of this casino, so, if 'progressives' are an important incentive to you, you might want to look elsewhere to satisfy your cravings.
click here to play at Virgin now
All in all, despite the odd criticism we've raised above, Virgin's online casino does live up to its promise of being great fun and, backed by such a reputable brand, comes with a reassuring pedigree that means secure and fair play are a given. When you take into consideration the low minimum bets (5p) and deposits you can make if you want to play for real money here, we think the Virgin Online Casino deserves to be popular and should also have special appeal for the online casino virgin.
click here to play at Virgin now |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Win an iPod Nano MP3 Player |
| Register for Casinocoinage.co.uk's Newsletter |
 |
| Register now |
|
|
|
