World Championship Poker: All In
Posted October 2, 2006
Despite pop culture's seemingly endless efforts, I've remained mostly immune to the poker craze of the last few years. I'll occasionally play, but I don't follow the host of television shows dedicated to tournaments of celebrities and professionals and have yet to venture into the world of online games. As such, I'm by no means an expert when it comes to playing cards.
Crave Entertainment's World Championship Poker featuring Howard Lederer All-In offers a solid introduction to the rules and strategies of a broad selection of varieties of poker. (Note: From here on out, the game will be referred to as WCP:AI because the full name's a bit of a mouthful.) The game features: Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha 8, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud 8, Razz Ace to 5, Razz 2 to 7, Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple, 5 Card Draw, Lowball Ace to 5, Lowball Ace to 5 Triple, Lowball 2 to 7, Lowball 2 to 7 Triple, H.O.E., R.O.E., H.O.S.E., H.O.R.S.E. and H.O.R.S.E.L. The wide selection ensures that most recreational players will be able to learn something while going through the game.
Gameplay:
While WCP:AI offers a quick play option for those just wanting to sit in on a brief round, the game's heart is its career mode. Your first action in career mode is to create a character. The game includes enough facial, body and apparel choices to allow for a high level of customization, ranging from the mundane to the absurd. Selections such as a bloody hockey mask or paper bag even allow you to cover your player's face during games, but this seems to have no discernable effect on your bluffing or tells.
Once a character is created, you can begin his or her career. Within this mode, you are allowed sit in on one event per week. Events can be small games at various out-of-the-way places on the world map or full tournaments held at one of the game's nine casinos. Also present on the map are the character's apartment, a pawn shop and a salon. As you progress through the game you can purchase items for your apartment, move into a new area of town and upgrade your character's looks, all of which improve your overall reputation. There are certain events and tournaments that are reserved for highly respected professionals and advancing your social status allows access to these areas of the game.
After selecting an event you will be seated at a table with a number of computer-controlled players. With default settings, the games' Turbo Mode is turned off and hands tend to move very slowly, as the camera pans to each player when they check, fold or raise. An attempt is made to integrate tells into the gameplay, but it does not feel very effective. For instance, a player's hands might shake while placing a bet, but this usually seems to be a poor indicator of the quality of the hand.
Additionally with Turbo Mode turned off, each player speaks and a commentator keeps track of what's going on. There is some diversity to the dialog, but it gets tedious very quickly. There are also multiple simple mini-games that take place when you play an unusually weak or strong hand. These usually involve something along the lines of a meter with a moving bar that you click to determine whether you keep a poker face, bluff or show a tell. The objectives to most of these brief mini-games are very obvious, but some are annoyingly difficult to figure out.
Unless a player has a nearly inexhaustible amount of time to invest in the game, they'll want to forgo the default settings and turn on the Turbo Mode. This excellent option basically cuts out the fluff and allows you to move through hands very quickly. When playing tournaments, it literally cuts out hours of meaningless and useless content. This is particularly valuable since the game offers no identifiable option to save during an event. One of the game's load screens claims that you are able to save during tournament play, but no instructions of how to do so are included in the game or the instruction manual and there is no save option present on any of the menus available while participating in an event.
As for the overall mechanics of participating in a card game, the controls are very intuitive and easy to pick up. Overall the programming seems fairly true to life. Sometimes you're dealt great cards from the outset, but far more often success comes down to knowing when and how to play seemingly unspectacular hands.
If played long enough the game will most likely have an occasional glitch. Once during a 5 Card Draw tournament, I was repeatedly dealt triple queens, an ace and a deuce. Each and every time when I discarded the deuce, I received a 6 and if I also discarded the ace, I received an ace of another suit. This happened around a dozen times over approximately 45 hands. On another occasion during a Texas Hold'em tournament, the same computer player was dealt an identical pair of 10's for eleven hands in a row. Each time the flop, turn and river were identical and each time, that player won with triple 10's. This type of glitch seemed very rare overall, but it did pop up from time to time and was a little distracting.
It would have been nice if WCP:AI had a little bit more flexibility to the process of obtaining and repaying loans. When your bankroll is exhausted, the pawn shop offers loans with interest rates that vary from week to week, but you have no control over the amount they offer. So, if you're broke and want to play in a tournament with a $1,000 buy-in, you might have to take out a $10,000 loan. To make matters worse, you cannot repay the loan in installments and interest is compounded weekly. If you have to take out a loan and then have a couple of bad weeks, it can quickly reach the point where it's smarter to create a new player and start over rather than attempt to dig yourself out of the hole.
Lastly, WCP:AI also includes an option for online play that makes use of the Eye Toy to allow viewing of your online opponents. As I do not own the Eye Toy or a PS2 network adaptor, this review does not take those features into account.
Graphics:
For the most part, WCP:AI looks decent enough. The character animations are nothing special, nor are they bad enough to become distracting. The casinos and back rooms you play in are somewhat bland, but distinctive enough that you can tell them apart. All in all, it's a very average looking PS2 game.
The one somewhat grating aspect of the graphics is the amount of slowdown that occurs when you turn on the game's Turbo Mode. While speeding up the rate of play makes the game much more enjoyable, the characters onscreen rarely keep up with the pace of what's actually happening. For example, the interface might be showing half the players' bets on the flop before the character that's dealing even lays down the cards. The animation often skips when it's trying to catch up, which can be a little irritating. On the bright side, this has no real negative effect on the gameplay and the Turbo Mode moves fast enough that you'll usually be looking at the interface showing your cards and bets instead of the lagging character models.
Audio:
The audio for WCP:AI is perfectly suitable for a budget game. The background noise depends on the casino. At a tropical casino, jungle noises play in the background. At a more traditional casino, the ambient noise is comprised almost entirely of slot machines. At a dungeon-themed casino, you're treated to sporadic sinister laughter. It's not particularly creative, but it won't take you out of the game.
The voice talent definitely has the potential to get irksome if you turn the Turbo Mode off and actually sit through the commentator's and players' comments. Characters speak in a wide variety of bad accents, ranging from yuppie to hick to vaguely European and so on and so forth. On the upside, the scripted dialog can prove unintentionally amusing and/or slightly disturbing. I can't imagine someone with a weakness for juvenile humor getting through a game without smirking at a male player saying 'Mmmmm. Nice and big, just like me.' or a female telling a man, 'Wow, you're so biiiiiiig.' On the darker side of things, I imagine most people will wonder what the game's programmers were thinking when they hear a male player threaten to smash in a female player's face, which does happen from time to time.
Conclusion:
WCP:AI offers an immense amount of replay value for those who like to collect everything a game has to offer. Certain tournaments and events are only available for one week out of each year, so to win everything, you're required to play through multiple years of your player's career. As your bankroll grows, you can purchase a wide variety of furniture and accessories for your apartment, some of which cost ridiculous amounts of money. Additionally, there are quite a few lucky charms that can be collected throughout the game, either by purchasing them at the pawn shop or winning them through special events. As long as you don't tire of playing poker, there ought to be enough to keep you playing for quite some time.
While the technical aspects of the game certainly aren't groundbreaking, WCP:AI offers an enjoyable experience for those who enjoy playing cards without actually putting any money on the line. If priced any higher, it would have most likely drawn a lower rating, but with an MSRP of just $19.99 and the costs of today's rentals, the game seems best suited for a rating of 'Skip It' or 'Recommended'. With the amount of variety and replay value it offers, WCP:AI is a fairly safe investment for PS2 owners looking to add a poker game to their library.
Crave Entertainment's World Championship Poker featuring Howard Lederer All-In offers a solid introduction to the rules and strategies of a broad selection of varieties of poker. (Note: From here on out, the game will be referred to as WCP:AI because the full name's a bit of a mouthful.) The game features: Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha 8, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud 8, Razz Ace to 5, Razz 2 to 7, Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple, 5 Card Draw, Lowball Ace to 5, Lowball Ace to 5 Triple, Lowball 2 to 7, Lowball 2 to 7 Triple, H.O.E., R.O.E., H.O.S.E., H.O.R.S.E. and H.O.R.S.E.L. The wide selection ensures that most recreational players will be able to learn something while going through the game.
Gameplay:
While WCP:AI offers a quick play option for those just wanting to sit in on a brief round, the game's heart is its career mode. Your first action in career mode is to create a character. The game includes enough facial, body and apparel choices to allow for a high level of customization, ranging from the mundane to the absurd. Selections such as a bloody hockey mask or paper bag even allow you to cover your player's face during games, but this seems to have no discernable effect on your bluffing or tells.
Once a character is created, you can begin his or her career. Within this mode, you are allowed sit in on one event per week. Events can be small games at various out-of-the-way places on the world map or full tournaments held at one of the game's nine casinos. Also present on the map are the character's apartment, a pawn shop and a salon. As you progress through the game you can purchase items for your apartment, move into a new area of town and upgrade your character's looks, all of which improve your overall reputation. There are certain events and tournaments that are reserved for highly respected professionals and advancing your social status allows access to these areas of the game.
After selecting an event you will be seated at a table with a number of computer-controlled players. With default settings, the games' Turbo Mode is turned off and hands tend to move very slowly, as the camera pans to each player when they check, fold or raise. An attempt is made to integrate tells into the gameplay, but it does not feel very effective. For instance, a player's hands might shake while placing a bet, but this usually seems to be a poor indicator of the quality of the hand.
Additionally with Turbo Mode turned off, each player speaks and a commentator keeps track of what's going on. There is some diversity to the dialog, but it gets tedious very quickly. There are also multiple simple mini-games that take place when you play an unusually weak or strong hand. These usually involve something along the lines of a meter with a moving bar that you click to determine whether you keep a poker face, bluff or show a tell. The objectives to most of these brief mini-games are very obvious, but some are annoyingly difficult to figure out.
Unless a player has a nearly inexhaustible amount of time to invest in the game, they'll want to forgo the default settings and turn on the Turbo Mode. This excellent option basically cuts out the fluff and allows you to move through hands very quickly. When playing tournaments, it literally cuts out hours of meaningless and useless content. This is particularly valuable since the game offers no identifiable option to save during an event. One of the game's load screens claims that you are able to save during tournament play, but no instructions of how to do so are included in the game or the instruction manual and there is no save option present on any of the menus available while participating in an event.
As for the overall mechanics of participating in a card game, the controls are very intuitive and easy to pick up. Overall the programming seems fairly true to life. Sometimes you're dealt great cards from the outset, but far more often success comes down to knowing when and how to play seemingly unspectacular hands.
If played long enough the game will most likely have an occasional glitch. Once during a 5 Card Draw tournament, I was repeatedly dealt triple queens, an ace and a deuce. Each and every time when I discarded the deuce, I received a 6 and if I also discarded the ace, I received an ace of another suit. This happened around a dozen times over approximately 45 hands. On another occasion during a Texas Hold'em tournament, the same computer player was dealt an identical pair of 10's for eleven hands in a row. Each time the flop, turn and river were identical and each time, that player won with triple 10's. This type of glitch seemed very rare overall, but it did pop up from time to time and was a little distracting.
It would have been nice if WCP:AI had a little bit more flexibility to the process of obtaining and repaying loans. When your bankroll is exhausted, the pawn shop offers loans with interest rates that vary from week to week, but you have no control over the amount they offer. So, if you're broke and want to play in a tournament with a $1,000 buy-in, you might have to take out a $10,000 loan. To make matters worse, you cannot repay the loan in installments and interest is compounded weekly. If you have to take out a loan and then have a couple of bad weeks, it can quickly reach the point where it's smarter to create a new player and start over rather than attempt to dig yourself out of the hole.
Lastly, WCP:AI also includes an option for online play that makes use of the Eye Toy to allow viewing of your online opponents. As I do not own the Eye Toy or a PS2 network adaptor, this review does not take those features into account.
Graphics:
For the most part, WCP:AI looks decent enough. The character animations are nothing special, nor are they bad enough to become distracting. The casinos and back rooms you play in are somewhat bland, but distinctive enough that you can tell them apart. All in all, it's a very average looking PS2 game.
The one somewhat grating aspect of the graphics is the amount of slowdown that occurs when you turn on the game's Turbo Mode. While speeding up the rate of play makes the game much more enjoyable, the characters onscreen rarely keep up with the pace of what's actually happening. For example, the interface might be showing half the players' bets on the flop before the character that's dealing even lays down the cards. The animation often skips when it's trying to catch up, which can be a little irritating. On the bright side, this has no real negative effect on the gameplay and the Turbo Mode moves fast enough that you'll usually be looking at the interface showing your cards and bets instead of the lagging character models.
Audio:
The audio for WCP:AI is perfectly suitable for a budget game. The background noise depends on the casino. At a tropical casino, jungle noises play in the background. At a more traditional casino, the ambient noise is comprised almost entirely of slot machines. At a dungeon-themed casino, you're treated to sporadic sinister laughter. It's not particularly creative, but it won't take you out of the game.
The voice talent definitely has the potential to get irksome if you turn the Turbo Mode off and actually sit through the commentator's and players' comments. Characters speak in a wide variety of bad accents, ranging from yuppie to hick to vaguely European and so on and so forth. On the upside, the scripted dialog can prove unintentionally amusing and/or slightly disturbing. I can't imagine someone with a weakness for juvenile humor getting through a game without smirking at a male player saying 'Mmmmm. Nice and big, just like me.' or a female telling a man, 'Wow, you're so biiiiiiig.' On the darker side of things, I imagine most people will wonder what the game's programmers were thinking when they hear a male player threaten to smash in a female player's face, which does happen from time to time.
Conclusion:
WCP:AI offers an immense amount of replay value for those who like to collect everything a game has to offer. Certain tournaments and events are only available for one week out of each year, so to win everything, you're required to play through multiple years of your player's career. As your bankroll grows, you can purchase a wide variety of furniture and accessories for your apartment, some of which cost ridiculous amounts of money. Additionally, there are quite a few lucky charms that can be collected throughout the game, either by purchasing them at the pawn shop or winning them through special events. As long as you don't tire of playing poker, there ought to be enough to keep you playing for quite some time.
While the technical aspects of the game certainly aren't groundbreaking, WCP:AI offers an enjoyable experience for those who enjoy playing cards without actually putting any money on the line. If priced any higher, it would have most likely drawn a lower rating, but with an MSRP of just $19.99 and the costs of today's rentals, the game seems best suited for a rating of 'Skip It' or 'Recommended'. With the amount of variety and replay value it offers, WCP:AI is a fairly safe investment for PS2 owners looking to add a poker game to their library.