World Series Of Poker: Pro Challenge for N-Gage
Gameplay
WSOP: Pro Challenge is a one-on-one Texas Hold 'Em Poker simulator. It
has three introductory matches which you can complete to unlock a three
round WSOP tournament, and winning that unlocks a three round N-Gage
tournament (despite the name it's all offline, there's no multiplayer).
You can also play against any of the computer players in one-off
matches, which may help you get to know each one's mannerisms.
The controls are very simple, you use the direction pad to choose an
option and press its button to select it. The game can be played in any
screen orientation, and works fine both horizontally and vertically. This should be suitable for any phone model with any button layout.
If you're unsure about Poker, or if you haven't played the Texas Hold
'Em variety which is so popular nowadays, it's worth learning the
basics before playing this game. WSOP:PC's in-game help is probably not
going to be clear enough for new players to learn from scratch, and you
would be better off consulting one of the many "Teach Yourself Poker"
sites on the web. Incidentally, the Texas Hold 'Em rules are the same
ones used on American poker television series such as The World Poker
Tour and World Series Of Poker (indeed, WSOP is the licence used by
this game). If you can follow episodes of the WPT or WSOP series, then you will
probably be able to play this game.
You can only play games against one opponent at a time, which is
perhaps understandable on a phone game as three or more players may
take too long, but it would have been nice to have the option of more
players. You can leave a game at any point, but you will have to start
it from
scratch next time. If you leave a game in a tournament, you can
re-enter the tournament in the round where you left. This is very convenient, but also a tempting way of cheating: as soon as you're losing you can leave a
game, then come back to it and the money is level again. Tables can be set to no-limit, pot-limit or limit.
All of the opponents are real life professional poker players: Johnny
Chan, Annie Duke, Shannon Elizabeth, Chris Ferguson, Mike Mizrachi and
Scotty Nguyen. They have apparently been photographed for WSOP:PC, and
provide various facial expressions during games which may or may not
give you a clue about their situation. The animation is rather crude
but you can definitely see the expressions, though there don't seem to
be very many of them.
In terms of gameplay, WSOP:PC's biggest flaw is probably the lack of
any kind of challenge. This reviewer (who is not an experienced player
at all) managed to get to the semi-finals of the final N-Gage
tournament after just a few hours of playing, and none of the matches
seemed more difficult than previous ones. There didn't seem to be any
learning curve at all, if you could defeat opponents early on you could
defeat them much later in the game too. After you've gone through all
the levels and tournaments, there's very little incentive to continue except to blindly accumulate more and more pretend money.
There are some specific achievement-based tasks you can aim for such as winning with one hand (which you can do fairly easily with an "all in"), but this gets a bit dull and feels like working through a checklist rather than playing a game.
As if the game wasn't easy enough, there's an "odds" meter which tells you roughly how good your cards are in the current situation. This meter can't be switched off, and it's very difficult not to look at it.
One of the novelties of WSOP:PC is the "tilt" meter, which fills up as
your opponent suffers a defeat of some kind. When it is full, it starts
blinking and the opponent is supposed to start making stupid mistakes,
but this reviewer didn't notice any difference. The same applies to the
"tells", or expressions on your opponent's face, which are supposed to
be the key to winning a game of poker. In WSOP:PC they aren't really required to
win at all, you can completely ignore them.
Some of your opponents. Yes, they do look like heads stuck on other people's bodies, and it gets even worse when they're animated.
Graphics & Sound
WSOP:PC features the kind of graphics you'd see on a Java game, and
indeed this is apparently a slightly upgraded port of a Java game.
On the positive side, all of the graphics are perfectly functional: you
can see all the cards, all the necessary information is visible, and
nothing gets in the way of the gameplay. A particularly nice touch is
the way the game waits to reveal the final card, which adds some
much-needed tension.
Another good graphical feature is the use of signature chips, which are effectively trophies that you receive for certain achievements. These all have
their own unique graphics, and it's more fun to collect these than
to just rack up numerical N-Gage points. Nokia might want to add
something like this to their own achievements system, which is how the first gen N-Gage's old trophy system used to work.
On the negative side, the animation of the opponents is very disappointing. Perhaps
because they'd paid for the rights to these famous players' faces, the
developers felt like they had to include photos of them, but the result
of this is a rather poor-looking mess. To be fair, you can clearly see
all of the players' expressions if you want to look for "tells" so that
element of gameplay is preserved, but it's all very crudely done.
There's absolutely no style here.
Sound is virtually non-existent, with just the occasional snatch of guitar
music and some brief spot effects during certain game events.
N-Gage Arena
The only online feature in the game is a single worldwide leaderboard, which the average player is never ever going to appear on. There are no subdivisions or categories, and the player isn't even told their ranking unless they're in the top twenty.
Overall
At ten euros WSOP:PC is not the cheapest game on the N-Gage platform.
For the same money or less you could buy any other N-Gage title
including the excellent Hooked On:COTD. However, WSOP:PC is the only card game on the platform so far, and that may
tempt some people to try it.
Its main plus point is that it is easy to get started and the in-game
interface is pretty streamlined. If you want poker on N-Gage, this may be good enough for you.
The game's negative points are a lack of difficulty even for beginners
like this reviewer, a lack of options in terms of rules and player
numbers, and a lack of things to do once you've played through all the
set challenges. On top of all that, there's no multiplayer of any kind: no online, no Bluetooth, not even any "pass around" option. As for the online rankings, they're only going to be of interest
to the top twenty obsessives who have played this game to death and
beyond.
World Series Of Poker: Pro Challenge feels like a cheap licence cash-in
game with very little depth, low quality production values, and very
few options. Some kind of multiplayer mode might well have saved it, but there isn't
one.
You may want to check out the many other poker titles
available to N-Gage phones on Java and Symbian S60, or you may even
want to wait for another poker game due on N-Gage soon called DChoc Cafe Hold
Em Poker.