Everyone has heard of poker, right? You know the card game? Do you like Texas Hold’em? How about video game and comic characters? If you said yes to one or both of these, then you are in for a treat. Telltale Games have brought together some of their all star characters for a battle to the death…in poker. Combining Texas Hold’em and comedy actually turns out to be a rather enjoyable card game.
Poker Night at the Inventory has some very unique and comedic content. The game oozes fan service from the Telltale games including The Adventures of Sam and Max and Tales of Monkey Island. Let’s not forget the crossovers with Valve’s Team Fortress 2, and internet comedies, Penny Arcade and Homestar Runner.
As far as gameplay goes it’s Texas Hold’em, the card game. You play poker with Max, Strong Bad, The Heavy, and Tycho. That’s about as far as it goes. The computer AI is not too awfully difficult on normal. In fact, you can win pretty much 60% of the hands by just going all in. There is a higher difficulty that will bring you more of a challenge.
Through winning, you can unlock new card decks and playing tables. Not much as far as gameplay changers, but it gives you something to work at. Eventually, the characters will begin to buy in at the beginning of the game with their own unique items that you can win if you knock them out of the game.
The game is taking place in the first person while characters will look at you when you are playing and talk to each other across the table. One nice touch is when you are having a stand off with another player. The camera will zoom in on the player while cards are drawn and you get to see their expressions to the cards in play. It really feels like each character has their own personality and play style.
What makes this game are the characters and content they produce. Each character acts and talks just like they do in their respected games and comics. Max is an insane story teller, recalling the crazy adventures of him and his partner, Sam. Strong Bad is an overly confident player who’s always trying to impress the ladies with his big bets. The Heavy is always comparing playing poker with killing, destroying, and shooting stuff with either his bare hands or his mini-gun, Sasha, and Tycho is the smooth talking geek who curses like a sailor and always has something witty, albeit, geeky to say while playing. The conversations that these characters have are well executed during play and are genuinely funny. I do have to say, Tycho curses A LOT. The game comes bleeped, but if you’d rather hear the foulness, you can turn it off.
To be honest, there’s not much to talk about. The game is just Texas Hold’em. There are no other modes of play and no multiplayer. If you like playing poker with some funny dialog and banter, you’ll get it here. It’s somewhat of a small game. There’s really not much to do other than play games and unlock new skins for the environment.
The game is only $5. If you’re a fan of the games or comics these guys are from, you’ll have a great laugh while watching the game unfold. If you like poker, you’ll get a decent Texas Hold’em game out of it, but if you’re looking for some more variety, you may want to look elsewhere. Still the game has so much charm, that I can’t help but say pick it up just for the funny banter alone.
Review copy provided by publisher.
