Poker Night at the Inventory

Poker Night at the Inventory is a single player poker game played against four characters. The line-up consists of Strong Bad from Homestar Runner cartoons, Max of “Sam & Max” fame, Team Fortress' The Heavy and Penny Arcade's Tycho.

Each character buys in with $10,000 in cash, but randomly the characters won't have the cash, so instead, they wager a Team Fortress 2 enhancement. Eliminating the character will give the player the item as a reward.

Even if you like poker, you may think that only playing against computer opponents would be poor since you don't get the social aspect and don't get the thrill of bluffing and reading people's game. However, the social aspect is very well represented. The banter between the players is top notch and the animation is surprisingly smooth as they take their move whilst continuing their dialog. The graphics are amazingly good too, and the mix of graphical styles for the character's works really well.

Winning enough tournaments unlocks new table and card designs but that just mixes it up graphically. The downside to the game is that there is only one type of game and that is Texas Hold 'em. Also, there will be a point where you have heard all the dialog and then it would become repetitive. You can adjust the amount of dialog you hear in the options which you could do to keep the games flowing and get more game time before the dialog starts repeating. Personally, I put 5 hours into the game and still heard a couple of new lines. It would have been nice to be able to battle against other characters but obviously the combinations of characters would need lots more dialog, so it's probably too much to ask.

If you have a vague interest in poker, then it's probably worth a pop since it is only a couple of quid.

Dialogue is super repetitive, but it's a decent game of Texas Hold 'Em.