World Poker Tour

I’m dealt Ace-5 of hearts, last to call on a community pot. The flop gives me another Ace with a couple of extra hearts (6-7). The big blind bets the pot resulting in multiple folds. I casually call. I turn a King of hearts, nut flush. The Big blind checks it to me and I bet the pot, awaiting a fold. The Big blind calls immediately, as if he is resting on a high two pair with only his false sense of self-satisfaction to hold on to. A Meaningless 5 on the river, I’ve got this. The Big blind checks and I go all in. He calls and I show him the disaster he just got himself in to. He holds a six with a decent kicker (offsuit)!!!

I’m speechless. No, this wasn’t no-limit table games at the Palm in Las Vegas. Welcome to World Poker Tour on Xbox, the game version of the second most popular poker tournament of the year. After the recent popularity boom in Texas Hold’em worldwide, game developers are doing whatever they can to cash in on the excitement. Whereas Party Poker and Full Tilt Poker match real people in thousands of games every day, risking real money for real rewards, poker games on consoles that pit you against artificial intelligence that couldn’t bluff its way out of a wet paper bag have just fallen flat in sales because of the lack of real action and game play that online poker sites provide. No doubt, the technologies are getting far more sophisticated and World Poker Tour is arguably the best poker game currently out. But as an avid poker player and someone who knows a thing or two about gaming, these projects just don’t have it (at least not what seasoned players are looking for).

Let’s start out with the positives, as there are some parts of the game I liked and wish could be a part of the next generation of poker titles (ie: Stacked with Daniel Negreanu). First off, the customized character creations were hilarious to put together. The key to building a poker player from scratch is to purely focus on making it look as ugly as possible. A case in point: My character, Berta, is a very endowed woman (in every direction) with an angelic voice similar to Louis Anderson, a facial silhouette that looks like she was raised next door to a nuclear power plant, and a body that can easily be confused with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. What does this have to do with game play? Really nothing but sitting down alongside freaks on every seat isn’t just funny, its downright realistic. (Let’s face it, poker players aren’t the prettiest of the bunch. They were the kids at your school that would purposely skip Picture Day so as not to grace the pages of the yearbook with the presence of their ugly mugs.)

Online multiplayer gives you the chance to unleash your monstrous creation upon the world’s poker tables and play against other Xbox Live users. It is here that World Poker Tour becomes a useful program for playing free poker with players that actually care about the game. You won’t see any crazy and unpredictable gamers going all-in every single hand to screw up the complete table. You can also take a glance at each player and try to pick up reads on how they bet and their facial expressions. Yes, facial expressions. Using the left analog stick, gamers can set different facial tones like anger or sadness that other players can watch. The usefulness remains to be seen but it’s still a great change from still expressions.

Now, what about the single-player game? Unfortunately, there is nothing really redeeming about the game for poker players.  It’s a good game for first timers, but who hasn’t played poker? The AI can lay down hands every once in a while when the odds are enormously against their favor, but any attempts to bluff out the computer with rags is usually hit or miss. Also, playing against computers is just boring. I realized halfway through a six-player tournament that I wasn’t having any fun. I could barely get through one quick game, let alone the full World Poker Tour campaign.

Combined, World Poker Tour does progress the genre of poker gaming from where it once was. I’m interested to see how Stacked stacks up to the competition when it hits the store shelves within the month. Until then, I would only recommend World Poker Tour to those who still want to learn the basic skill sets to poker.

Gameplay: 6.0
It’s a fairly simple gameplay system that focuses on the enormity of bets to influence the AI system.

Graphics: 8.0 
The character models are fairly detailed but everything else is too bland to look at.

Sound: 8.0
Players verbally fold and the WPT commentators announce what you already know, but it adds to the experience.

Difficulty: Easy

Concept: 7.0
With poker's fast growth in popularity over the last few years, its no wonder why game developers are rapidly pushing out incomplete and grossly flawed titles to catch the wave. World Poker Tour, however, does have certain gameplay mechanisms that I hope will be used in future gambling titles.

Multiplayer: 8.5
Xbox Live works pretty well establishing a community of poker players who want to play for free.

Overall: 7.3
World Poker Tour is currently the best poker game currently in the market, but I would still hold out for something better (Hopefully Stacked).