by: Luke Steele

September 06, 2006

The game of Poker is certainly most devious. Stuffed full of bluffs and straight-faced millionaires, it certainly is not a game for the faint-hearted. Blowing a pot worth potentially thousands is certainly something I imagine most people would not want to endure in their lifetimes. Recently released on the Xbox Live Arcade, Texas Hold’em has become a major success, engrossing more downloads than any other Arcade game released. But just how good is it?

Poker can be a highly complex game at times, so let’s not get into details on how to play. What matters is how the game performs. Players can boot up the game first time and choose from numerous Poker options, all of which can cater for different gamers. The game supports not only standard exhibition type matches, but also four different tournaments which range from easy to very difficult.

In exhibition, you can choose from how much you want the blinds to be, as well as how much the buy in is going to be. It is wise if you are new to the game of Poker that you set the buy-in rate to zero. Players receive a bankroll which is used to enter games, and is an integral part for playing. For instance, going into a $600 dollar buy-in game will deduct that amount from your bankroll, and if you lose, that amount is gone for good. If your bankroll stoops too low, then you won’t actually be able to partake in many games at all, so being conservative is wise. To be honest, I think a lot of new players will find this frustrating and tedious. Why the developers couldn’t have included a bigger bankroll, or even a small tutorial is beyond me.

When it comes to the actual table, Texas Hold’em is good, but not that great. For an experienced Poker player, the game will seem incredibly easy. Rarely are you given a bad hand to play with, and when facing off against the AI, the bluffing element is gone from the game. The AI will only put in large bets when they have the best hand, so it’s easy to pick them off one by one as the game goes by.

Tournaments are by far the most intriguing and fun aspect of Texas Hold’em, as the learning curve is very slow and allows you to become acquainted with the game. As you progress up tournament ladders, the AI becomes steadily better and better, and will cause trouble if they catch you out. For beginners, the tournaments give you the opportunity to start in low-money games, which subsequently are pretty difficult to lose, and give you a nice amount of money to take elsewhere. There is a slight lack of variation and substance here, but it is still bottomless fun which tries its best to keep a player occupied over time.

You can also head on Xbox Live for a few rounds too, which is sure to become a major hit with players. There, you can play normal modes and even create your very own tournament with custom options. Texas Hold’em also, like Uno, supports the upcoming Xbox Live Vision Camera. I can only imagine looking at someone after bluffing them out of all their chips is going to be an incredible experience.

Graphically, Texas Hold’em isn’t much to look at in anyway. The most on screen at any one time will be the table and the cards, so on this front there isn’t much to say. Interface-wise, the game I found was very smooth in its transitions between menus, and by far is one of the most controller-friendly games out there.

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Overall, Texas Hold’em is a solid title. Whether it is worth the 800 Microsoft Points, however, is a different matter. For the gamers who got this for free on its first two days of release, the game will feel like a big bargain. While Texas Hold’em tries to mimic the real game, it has some flaws for both beginners and experts. It certainly ranges from being far too easy, to extremely difficult, especially for the newer Poker players. To sum it up, gamers who like Poker will be hard pressed to find anything as good as this, but at the same time, playing the real thing is far more exciting.

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