Texas Hold'em Tournament Review (WiiWare)

One thing that seems to come with downloadable services for video games are card games. WiiWare to date has only had one, VIP Casino: Blackjack. Another one has been added to the service with Leisure Games latest release, Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament. If you’re not familiar with the game two player place blind bets, a small blind and a large blind, before the cards are dealt. Each player is then given two cards and another round of betting takes place. If there are still players left after that round of betting 3 community cards, called the flop, are dealt and another round of betting takes place. That is followed by another community card, which is called the Turn, and another round of betting. Finally a last community card, called the River, is dealt and a final round of betting takes place. If two or more players remain they show their cards and the player with the highest hand is awarded the pot. That is Texas Hold ‘Em in a nutshell. Luckily, if you’re still confused or have not played the game before there is a tutorial mode in the game where you can learn the basics.

You can participate in single player free play where you face off against five computer controlled opponents. There are also five different tournaments to compete in that will get progressively more difficult as you move along. The Blind bets in the game start at $50 for the small blind and $100 dollars for the big blind. There is a timer in the top right corner that counts down. Once it reaches zero the blinds are doubled. This is to encourage play to continue and makes the pots higher as you play.

The Free Play and Tournament modes are all available for online play as well where you can have up to six other human opponents, which is where this game really hits it big. There really is no substitute for humans when dealing with games like this. The online play worked well, and I never had any problems connecting to other players. It takes about two to three minutes to find the necessary opponents and play begins. It was, however, more difficult to find opponents for the higher ranked tournaments as you have to play through them all before reaching the higher ranked tournaments. This could have been due to the fact that the game was newly released and not enough people had been able to reach those tournaments.

The game play itself was very solid, which is what should be expected in a card game. All the necessary options, such as folding, checking, calling and such are there and you can’t choose an option that is not allowed. That means that new players to the game will not get lost as it’s very easy to tell which portion of the hand you are in and what your options are exactly. Raising your bet is done with on screen chips. You simply point to the various denominations and place your bet.

Graphically the game leaves a lot to be desired. There is Mii support in the game and if you’re playing online with other players that’s not an issue. The environments you play in are modeled quite well. They resemble the card rooms in a real casino. The character models for the background players and your computer controlled opponents, however, look like they were pulled straight from a Nintendo 64 game. It was a bit distracting having to look at blocky opponents and the Mii characters are a much more desirable choice. It begs the question, why weren’t random Miis from your system memory used rather than the ugly characters they have in the game.

There is little to no flash to the presentation. You have a number of menu selections that you can choose from. They are bare bones boxes that you simply point at to select and it takes you to the next selection of menus, if any are available before jumping into the game. All the options available to you during a hand are displayed at the bottom of the screen when it is your turn to place bets. You also have a small selections of emotes that you can choose from, but they will not be seen unless your character is on the screen at the time, and there is no audio component with these, they are all visual.

There is little audio used in the game. None of the characters speak, but there is background crowd noise to help you feel like you’re in a casino environment. Voice chat would have been a welcome addition, as you could have had some interaction with the other players online. The music will make you feel like you were in an elevator and never stepped out. It was quickly turned off during the review and not missed at all.

Overall, it’s a very good, quality representation of the game of Texas Hold ‘em. Digital Leisure did a good job making sure the game worked properly and in that regard it works wonderfully. The bare bones presentation, ugly character models, and little to no audio in the game left something to be desired. The game does work, and it was easy to play against human opponents, but it just felt dull and boring when it wasn’t your turn to do something. A little more interaction with the environment and other players would have gone a long way to making this a really good game of poker. As it is it’s just an average poker game.

Final Score: 3/5

Review copy of the game provided by Digital Leisure.