A game that is actually good to play but somehow lacks being totally interesting.
Once you start off you have to make yourself a character so that you can immerse yourself in the world of poker from small buy-ins and relatively next to nothing winnings to grand pots that will be hard to win. You have a few choices of the skin color, how your face will look. hair, facial hair, glasses, hats, gloves, rings, etc. There isn't all that many for each but it should satisfy even the ones who want to make themselves in exact likeness. From there you either go to the tutorial or straight to the career mode where your game with pros will official beginning.
The tutorial basically teaches you all the rules of poker by playing a game with you and showing you step by step what to do when and what to do when you don't have good cards. It is helpful but relatively boring so going straight to the career is much better because even if you lose a couple of times in the first game you can play it as much as you want because magically everytime you lose the $200 that was the buy-in he somehow earns a new $200. Like working at the carwash, finding money on the floor and so on.
The career is pretty well set up and allows you to play a few kinds of poker not only texas hold 'em. The world is 2D and not fun to explore since its basically a map of the world with a few places to play poker, a place to change your looks for a few bucks, a pawnshop, and finally your own home which will be upgraded as you win games. AT your house you hold weekly poker games for your friends with small buy-ins and small pots.
However, good this game is it still lacks the enticing gameplay which is expected of a poker game. During your turns you are sometimes forced to play minigames. They are basically two points rotate around a circle one having the name Bluff and the other Poker Face. Times counts off and you have about 4 seconds to get those one of those two names to zero. It isn't especially hard and yet the two points rotate once to the right and then all of a sudden change to the left. You play these minigames if you have a strong hand or a weak hand. However, the AI is completely oblivious to this even if you go all in and don't get one of the two and your player shows he has a weak hand the AI will still fold. So in actuality this minigame is hopeless because it neither helps you or harms you.
The AI as I mentioned before isn't all that briliant. The catch phrase are very repetetive and many of the other "people" you play against have the same catch phrase as you such as "I won? I was suppose to lose." or "Call me next time and you'll win." Also no matter what you do the AI won't know whether you have a weak or strong hand and will act as if the minigame never happened. Furthermore, in playing for larger pots it is much easier to beat the AI than it is in playing for smaller pots because in the smaller pot everyone is cautious while in bigger pots most of the time one or two players will go all in and even if your not playing they will eventually eliminate themselves.
Even with some of these drawbacks it is still the best poker game out there of course except real poker. It's an easy game to pick up and play but soon will bore you and you will go on looking for a new and exciting adventure or action or shooting ame. But it's still worth a try if you want to learn to play poker or simply are an enthusiast and must have this installment.