World Championship Poker

For decades casinos in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Indian Reservations throughout
the country have been making a killing taking your cash, and in some cases,
the players have done the same thing. With Poker games the likes of Texas hold
‘em becoming more mainstream and their following growing larger by the day,
it comes as no surprise that we would see a Poker specific gambling game on
the Xbox. Of course, you can’t gamble with real money in World Championship
Poker, in fact, the only money you have at stake is the 20 bucks you shell
out for this bargain priced title. But is it really worth the twenty dollars
just to play a few variations of poker that can be found freely on the internet?
That will be for you to decide, but if you have Xbox Live it very well may be,
since WCP boasts online play via the Xbox Live service.

When you first begin the game you will have an opportunity to create a character,
and there are an abundant amount of variables in doing this. In addition to
being able to choose skin tone and clothing you will also be able to alter more
minute details of the characters face, such as bone structure, chin width, eyebrow
positioning and so on. The options available are vast, and you will be able
to create a character in your likeness, or in the likeness of your favorite
‘real world’ poker player if you fancy that. The drawback is that while there
are plenty of options, the models don’t actually look all that great, but this
is a poker game, not a modeling contest, so it won’t detract from the game any.

As mentioned in my opening statement, World Championship Poker can be played
online via the Xbox Live service, or offline. Offline play lets you jump right
into a game, or buy into a tournament to win different amounts of money, some
of the pay outs are quite hefty as well, the only problem here is there is never
a real sense of achievement, there is no career model, so it seems like you
are just building up cash for no reason at all. . . kind of like a real gambler
that has no ambition to actually do anything with his or her winnings. The game
does accurately depict about 13 or so different variations of poker, from stud
to draw, and of course hold ‘em game types. As with real world betting, you’ll
find that Texas Hold ‘Em is about the most exciting and easily the best way
to rake up the dough.

The single player version of the game is not without problems, the AI is very
predictable and will bet their entire stack of chips on a hand you wouldn’t
even consider playing with at time, and on other occasions simply check when
they have a great hand. There is no sense of character when playing against
the AI, in a sense they all do the same thing, they just look and sound a bit
different from the rest of the AI characters. It would have been nice to give
the AI characters, well, more character.

The good news is, when you sign into Xbox Live and play with real people all
that predictability goes out the window. Perhaps the developer, Crave, modeled
the AI after some of the people I have played against online, some of them don’t
have a clue and are way too loose with their money. That’s not to say it’s not
fun, but playing someone who raises just to see if you’ll stay in the game can
get annoying, but in the end you walk away with a bigger pot anyhow.

Here is a list of the basic control scheme within the game:

• Left thumbstick – navigating through menus
• Right thumbstick – looking, manipulating camera types
• D-pad – navigating through menus
• A button – action button
• B button – cancel in menu
• Y button – display system information
• Black button—bring poker digital advisor
• Back button – changes display options

I already mentioned Xbox Live play briefly, but here I will get into some of
the technical details of signing in and playing, which also presents some issues
to the gamer. Setting up a game, with the betting options you want is certainly
simple enough, and there is no lag in gameplay on Xbox Live, but there are some
lingering issues with the match making feature. The system will display games
as available when they really are not. All too often you’ll attempt to join
a game the system says is available only to get a message that the game is no
longer available, frustrating to say the least. When playing with a predetermined
group of people this problem is non existent, you just wait for your buddies
to join and then begin the game.

There is not a whole lot to be said about the graphics. Sure I could site here
and whine over how the graphics are sub par for the Xbox, but let’s face it,
this is a Poker game, I don’t know anyone that has played the game that was
expecting the graphics to be superb, nor do they need to be for a game of this
type. Crave did try to add some interest to the game play environments however,
sometimes you’ll be playing in a parlor, other times on a beach, and still other
times in a penthouse, a bit unrealistic but at least they did try and change
it up a bit. Now complaining about the graphics would be ridiculous for a poker
fan, but even the cards and the tables don’t look that great, so while we cannot
expect the best in the graphics department, we can expect better than what was
delivered.

See All
World Championship Poker Screenshots in the Gallery

If there is one area of the game that fell flat on it’s face, it’s the audio
section. Thankfully the audio is set extremely low by default, if you happen
to go into the options and turn it up on your own, you’ll quickly learn that
it was a mistake to do so, and set it right back down where it was. The dealers
and commentators do a terrible job at making the game exciting when announcing
winning hands, and the players use the same phrases over and over (and over).

If you like to play Poker and have Xbox Live, then the reply value is there.
As for the offline portion of the game, I can’t really see anyone completing
it once, let alone doing it a second time.

Overall Score: 5.5/10 [not an average]

I did my best not to sound too critical on World Championship Poker in this
review, but the fact is, you’ll only enjoy it on Xbox Live with a bunch of friends
that enjoy playing Poker.

• World
  Championship Poker Screenshots
• World Championship Poker
  Cheat Codes and Hints
• Buy
  from EB Games
• Buy
  from Amazon.com

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