Ah, poker! The game I learned from my wife’s grandmother, Mimmsy, in post-Christmas penny-ante games. And while I know that all the recent televised poker has made some superstars of people who sit on their butts for long periods of time, look at cards and bet big money, those pikers can’t hold a candle to the tough old broad that used to take me for a grand total of $3.64 over the course of five hours playing. And while World Championship Poker is a respectable video game facsimile of poker both for the single player and online, it too is a wanna-be compared to a friendly and fun poker game where the game changes as fast as the dealer.
World Championship Poker initially gives the player a chance to create an on-screen avatar to represent them as they play both against the computer and online. It was a great surprise to find this utility actually powerful enough to create a persona near your own … if that is what you are into. You could also probably put together an Anna Nichol Smith avatar to play as too … if that is what your kinky self is into. Male, female, young, old, thin, fat, high cheek bones, wide nose, etc. All are here and extensively modifiable.
The poker games World Championship Poker plays are respectable if not exhaustive. (Let’s face it, there are more variations of poker than there are slot machines in Las Vegas.) There are variations of Hold‘em, Draw and Stud poker. The entire 12-game array consists of Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple, Tahoe, Double Flop Hold’em, Super Hold’em, Five-Card Draw, Seven-Card Stud, Triple Draw, Billabong Poker and Shanghai. (Look online for full explanations of each variation. There are lots of poker sites out there.)
Players may choose to participate in four different game modes. Sit & Go is a single-player mode that lets the gamer jump into a game for a few hands. Tournament mode is also a single-player mode consisting of games the player buys his way into and plays until he takes all the money of the other players. As more money is earned, the player may buy his way into games with higher stakes. Tutorial mode allows the player to learn the games without losing his shirt. Online, by far the most interesting mode, lets the player hookup with other poker enthusiasts via Xbox Live and actually play them with virtual money. Sorry, no real money, only bragging rights are ultimately at stake.
In the single-player mode the AI is a little limited. A lot of what these virtual players do is predictable and illogical. Who in their right mind checks early and then puts up big money in later betting rounds on a pair of 3s? Thankfully the single-player modes can pretty much be ignored. Online is where it is at and where those unpredictable humans make there appearance and the AI is left drunk in the toilet to sit this hand out. Online gaming is very smooth with very little lag. The little lag there is almost goes unnoticed because we’re really not talking about a fast-action game here. The games I participated in were, for the most part, friendly with playful banter. Online is where a player can absolutely tell you over the headset that he has that fifth heart for the flush in his hole cards, you don’t believe him, call his bluff, and sure enough he turns up the fifth heart. No AI is going to do that.
Where World Championship Poker falls down is in its limits of play. As stated earlier, there are a huge number of poker variations out there. During a friendly game it is fun to have “dealer’s choice” and allow the dealer to call the game he’d like to play that round. World Championship Poker does not allow that. Once a game is chosen, that is it for the duration. The deal may change between players, but it only affects the ante and betting. With no mixing of the games, it gets a bit dull.
The overall presentation of the game is only solidly mediocre too. The backgrounds can be excused because they mean so little to the actual play of the game. The cards and table are less excusable. Yeah, they get the job done, but they are definitely sub-par. I know it is a budget game, but some work should have been put where it really counts. Audio is okay, but the win call by the game sounds only a little better than a Cylon on a bender.
For $19.99 World Championship Poker is well worth the money for a player who has Xbox Live and would like to play a few hands of poker with strangers or friends online. As a single-player experience I don’t think it is worth even that bargain price. The limited ways to play ultimately causes the game to get tedious and the AI can’t even pretend to measure up to the human element that makes poker so interesting.
