I really wanted to dig Poker Night, which is an inarguably great concept. I've been burned too many times on stupid raises from the AI that turn out to be fantastic calls when the river rolls around. But, you can't help but to feel as if the AI knows all. "Hard" provides a better, more authentic experience, with players calling and folding call almost like we would. On the "Normal" difficulty setting, the characters play like lunatics who call and raise chaotically. Poker night at the inventory series#Pacing problems aside, the stakes just aren't there, as a series of isolated games never makes you feel as though you're losing anything of value.Īnd lose you will. But sluggishness ensures you'll never reach that emotional zenith. Your heart races, you sweat, and your brain feels like it's melting as you consider all the possible outcomes between each bet and call. And when you've already disconnected to the point where you're attempting to click through the game. Sure, you can skip cut-scenes with a right-click or skip the current hand once you've folded, which certainly speeds it up. Playing cards with some talkative favorite characters is great. Honestly, I think I've stared longer at Strong Bad's haunting green eyes and Max's ears than I have my cards after hours of play. And if you're a smart player, you'll only participate in half of these hands, meaning you'll be sitting out a lot. You'll play 20-40 hands an hour between cut-scenes and bursts of uninteresting narrative, a meager amount if you're used to Internet poker which moves at light speed comparatively. But as a direct result of the overabundance of presentation, the poker gets too bogged down to enjoy. Poker, which at its best is an intelligent game that combines luck, skill and savvy, could have been the lifesaver here. (I'm not sure if it's my age or not, but he comes off as an overgrown and spectacularly dull child.) Telltale does its best to be funny and breathe life into these characters, but hardly anything that spills out of the their mouths is humorous or entertaining, Strong Bad in particular. And even if what you hear is new, little of it is great. As you play, you'll start to hear dialog repeated, which immediately drains the charm. for about the first 30 minutes.įamiliarity, however, soon becomes its downfall. In theory, playing cards with some talkative favorite characters is great, and it is. Characters chatter to each other and groan, mumble and riff on previous exploits in their respective franchises at an incessant rate, with the poker timed to accommodate the chit-chat. The presentation and atmosphere have been pretty clearly emphasized over the poker. No other modes or styles of play are included, so it's just you and these four guys in tournament after tournament with no carry-overs from the previous meetings. You'll play as the fifth wheel in a one-game, $10,000 Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament against video game superstars The Heavy, Max, Tycho, and Strong Bad. well, there's just the next oddly timed "sandvich" joke. In short: Telltale has fallen off the rope entirely.Īt least in Sam & Max there's always the chance of redemption in the next narrative-led mission. But it quickly becomes clear that the repetitive dialog is muddying a poker game that was already weak to begin with. Poker Night at the Inventory seems to be drenched in the studio's typical humor and likable characters. The studio counts on you being immersed in the universes it creates, but also has to keep all that character from getting in the way of the game it has crafted. Telltale Games has a difficult tightrope to walk, balancing as it does between narrative and gameplay.
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