Fatal flaws – XG Mobile Backgammon Review

2/20/17 Update: I finally gave up, and started doing manual rolls, which addressed all of my gameplay issues (the tutorial mode is still frequently an idiot, however, and I am amazed by the number of "world class" games I lose compared to the number of "intermediate" games I win). At least now I'm actually learning how to play better, rather than being continually beaten down by "perfect" rolls and learning nothing. This pretty much proves that this game either (1) has a terrible random-number generator to produce the rolls, or (2) is deliberately programmed to give the AI better rolls at the highest playing level (which would be amazing, given that the AI claims to be able to calculate the probability of winning for every possible move) or (3) both of the above. Pretty shameful, really. Original review: This is an attractive-enough app, but it has some fatal flaws that seriously diminish the enjoyment of the gameplay. In addition to the previously-noted practice of making the higher levels more difficult simply by giving the AI better dice rolls, the AI also will demonstrate at those higher levels egregiously bad play, at times--it will make terrible moves that no moderately-experienced player would ever make. Yes, I'm usually able to take advantage of those bad moves to win games, but that's not really helping me become a better player, now is it? In tutorial mode, if you follow everyone of its move recommendations, you'll probably find that you actually lose more often than you would if you just ignored the recommendations and play a tactically-conservative game. The most annoying fault, however, is the way that the ARI will suddenly turn on automatic rolls at times, sometimes preventing you from following the moves, and even denying you the opportunity to legally double. Over the course of many hundreds of games, I have lost doubling opportunities many dozens of times, taking away the tactical advantage of possibly forcing a resignation. Despite my multiple reports of this fault to the developers, and pointing out to the developers that simply adding a settings option to disable automatic rolls would be an easy stop-gap fix, they continue to release new versions that do not correct this problem. While it is true that many of these issues could be addressed by manually rolling dice, that sort of misses the point of having a computerized backgammon game, doesn't it? All in all, this is disappointingly mediocre for a paid app that asks for a premium price.
Review by bethel95 on XG Mobile Backgammon.