America's obsession with card games has hit an all-time high. You can't turn on a television these days without seeing a poker tournament of some kind, or at least an advertisement for one of the thousands of poker sites available online. Crave Entertainment has been cashing in on this obsession for the past couple of years with its World Championship Poker franchise. Now the company is betting big on the third game in the series, World Championship Poker: Featuring Howard Lederer 'All In'. Unfortunately, the only thing with any real substance in the game is its ridiculously long title.
If you were lucky enough to play Crave's previous World Championship Poker game, you'll notice right away that this latest entry is a huge leap backwards. Graphically, the game has a new coat of paint, but in all the wrong places. The character models, while a bit sharper in appearance, lack any sort of individual personality. Whether I was playing one of the pros or a random computer-generated opponent, the same animations and behaviors were recycled over and over again. Most of the time, I felt like I was playing cards with one of the animatronics displays at Disneyland. No, I take that back. The Disney displays feel much more lifelike.
The artificial feel of the game doesn't stop with the graphics though. The AI opponents have been dumbed down considerably over last year's version. Rather than having any semblance of strategy, it felt like the computer was simply flipping a coin when deciding whether or not to follow through on a hand. There was more than one occasion when it was obvious to anyone who had even seen a deck of cards before that I was in a stronger position. And yet, the AI was right there, betting big all the way to the end. I even tried testing the other end of the spectrum, betting large on a weak showing, only to have the AI limp in during each round of betting. Never once, in all my betting, did my opponents behave in a realistic fashion.
Scenario mode makes its debut as a new feature of All In. In it, players are given specific tasks to accomplish in a round of poker. These may range from simply pulling off a huge bluff to more intricate scenarios like keeping a particular opponent from going bust at the table. While these scenarios do help teach some basics for play at the poker table, none of them ever grabbed my interest. Instead, the entire Scenario mode felt like a long, drawn-out tutorial mode.
Another irritating 'feature' in All In is the return of the infamous Bluff/Tell mini-game. Once again, players have to go through a short mini-game to try and bluff opponents into thinking they have a better (or worse) hand than they actually do. This was one of the biggest flaws in the previous game, as it interrupted the flow of the single-player experience, and virtually broke the multiplayer. This time around it's not quite as bad, but it's still something the game would have been much better off without.
To be fair, All In does have a couple of redeeming factors that keep the game from being a total wash. If you're looking for more than just Texas Hold 'Em in a card game, All In has got you covered with a whopping 19 different poker variations. And if you've got a couple of friends around, up to four players can deal out a few hands over an Ad Hoc connection. More adventurous types can take part in the game's online multi-table poker tournaments. Online games were a lot more stable than in previous games, plus it's nice that the game lets players take their single-player offline winnings into online multiplayer games. And since All In's online component is cross-platform compatible with the PS2 version of the game, there's never any shortage of online opponents eager to place their bets.
To use a good poker analogy, World Championship Poker: Featuring Howard Lederer 'All In' seems like Crave's attempt to bet the farm on nothing more than a high card. The few improvements the game makes over last year's entry pale in comparison to its shortcomings. Kenny Rogers once said, 'Know when to walk away, and know when to run.' This gambler, on the other hand, suggests you take the latter option and run as far away from All In as you can.