Stacked
Sure I have played variations of poker in the past, yes I know that a Royal Flush is the best hand you could ever hope to achieve, and I've even found myself watching poker tournaments on TV, but I'm just not addicted like some people. Occasionally I'll pop in for a couple of hands in a videogame adaptation or even try my luck at the casino when I'm feeling lucky. I'd consider myself a novice. I don't know all of the lingo and am only vaguely familiar with what hand beats what when it comes time to lay down the cards.
So why then would someone like me want to shell out $30 for Stacked when there are cheaper and better versions of Texas Hold-'Em out there? The answer is I wouldn't.
Gameplay:
Let me clear the air. It's not that I hated Stacked; I didn't, it's that for your money you just don't get a good enough game to warrant getting excited about. The included features are decent but they really aren't anything you can't find in a cheaper version of the game.
Once you start the game you have a few options to plow through before you can get to a game of cards. For starters you have to create a profile and get dragged through a paltry character customization feature. Seriously, I haven't seen such a limited offering for creating a player since the mid 90s. You get to pick the gender of your character and then choose from a couple of body types, whether you want a hat or not and what colored clothes you are going to wear. Granted your character model doesn't really affect the gameplay but it does work against the atmosphere of the game which I'll get into later.
Now say you are relatively a novice at poker like I am. Chances are you'll want to sit through Daniel Negreanu's tutorial and explanation of the several nuances found in Hold-'Em. For the most part the explanation of the miscellaneous terms is pretty good and he goes through a fairly in depth amount of strategy and winning techniques. Don't expect to walk away from the tutorial with the sense that you are a master at poker though. It's merely a layout of the fundamentals as far as what it takes to win and what all of the lingo that you'll hear means.
From there you can jump right into your career and start making some digital money. The progression is fairly straight forward with public matches and tournaments, VIP invitations and just about every variation in between. As you work your way up the ladder you'll unlock new gaming environments and professional players. The career mode has a wealth of games to play and there's always something to do with a decent amount of challenge to be had. The only problem is that from there the rest of the features are far less than stellar.
The core gameplay centers around Hold-'Em as the only form of poker that you can partake in. Now, if you have ever played a digital form of poker before then you know that the AI is never quite as realistic as you'd hope. Stacked tries to bring an upgraded, more human AI to the table and in most cases it actually succeeds. CPU characters "seem" to make appropriate calls "most" of the time. The only problem in a game like Hold-'Em is that you don't actually get to see their cards, so you don't know whether they are making the right call or not by folding or checking.
There are also times where the AI will randomly go all-in without even seeing what cards the dealer has flopped or not. I don't think you'd see this happen in real life all that often, but you chalk it up to an intimidation tactic. The funny thing is that it happens with such frequency that it displays the lack if "thought" on the part of the computer. Oh, and speaking of AI, do yourself a favor and don't take Daniel Negreanu's in-game advice option. I can't tell you how many times I was told to fold while I had a pair of queens or told to bet it all when I had a jack and a two. Sometimes the advice is spot on but in other circumstances if you used this advice in real life you'd have just lost the deed to your house.
If the AI isn't quite holding your interest you can bring the game online and play against other gamers. The gameplay is pretty much the same but the interaction is better and actions seem a little more realistic. Still, that doesn't change the fact that the game isn't very accessible. Convoluted menus and cumbersome actions make things a lot more difficult than it should be to do simple things like bet, fold, or check things out around the table. It makes things feel clumsy at times especially when it comes to the whole betting thing. When you try to raise the stakes you have to use the shoulder buttons to do so. That's all well and good but when the game jumps from $50 to $150 and then the next step of betting everything, things can get frustrating.
As far as replay value goes there is quite a bit here as you'd expect. You could virtually play this game until you're old and gray, but I wouldn't recommend it. Despite the seemingly advanced AI and various modes to go through the offerings in Stacked are rather limited. Online play helps things out greatly, but again the game's structure and asking price just don't make it much better than cheaper (or free) Hold-'Em games.
Graphics:
To put things bluntly Stacked is not a good looking game. The character models, environments and textures all leave a lot to be desired and the lack of detail on the table is almost embarrassing. Characters offer a limited amount of facial expressions and they animate stiffly with a small range of motion. Sadly compared to other poker games this is better looking than most. That's just not saying a lot.
Audio:
The sound department in Stacked is just as limited as the graphical one unfortunately. Background chatter and noise plus repetitive phrases and limited voices really bring things down. I mean, I guess you can't expect the world when it comes to a poker game, but it would have been nice if Stacked broke the mold.
Conclusion:
For $30 Stacked just doesn't add up. The various modes available are barely better than some of the free poker games out on the net. Online play is a key element but the same problems with cluttered gameplay come into effect. Aesthetically the game leaves a lot to be desired as well, but again for a poker game it's not "that" bad looking or sounding. Low score across the board leave this one in the skipping category. Only those of you who absolutely adore poker and must play every incarnation of the game will find this title appealing. A lot of the promise that Stacked had to offer going in turned out to merely a bluff.