Can you learn poker from World Championship Poker: All-In?

By Katie . October 19, 2006 . 10:31am

The creators of the well-meaning, but neither instructive nor aesthetically-compelling, World Championship Poker 2 feat. Howard Lederer are this year placing their bets again with WCP: All-In. What’s in the cards for them this time, however, is up to a bit more debate, as an older, wiser, and crankier me gives another crack at one of these ‘game-within-a-game’ games, expecting from it more than from the last.

The 19 varieties of poker expand upon the previous’ WCP’s offerings, and with all the differences therein, the novice hopes that WCP: AI will have elaborated on the formerly-sparse tutorials as well. But it’s not to be. Located once again in the Extras menu – yeah, the Tutorial is still considered an Extra – the mock-up game gives me this feeling that I should turn away from the table. ‘Generic Dude’, whose hand I actually get to choose and play in what is a more interactive Tutorial than ever, he’s now gonna be extra-pissed at me for losing. It’s not my fault that there isn’t any guidance in regards to what cards to discard or play, any strategy that the native English-speaker can hope to grasp with the weakest understanding. So, Generic Dude, don’t blame me.

Immediately obvious is that the underlying engine of All-In has benefited from a visual up-do since the last outing, at least where navigation is concerned. As before, tips appear during the load screens, but, striving for a little more spectacle than their predecessors, whose style was the digital equivalent of a green chalkboard, they’re now realized with comic art-style caricatures of a handful of the game’s top players, as is the main menu. While the attention to presentation is appreciated, even nicer would have been tips that actually don’t repeat themselves twice in five minutes, and then linger two more while the Quick Play starts up, or vanish in the half-blink of an eye when loading the less-intensive menus. The load times are telling of the rickety backbone behind WCP: All-In, with the mandatory character creation taking about as long to make changes as the original Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast – just with less noise, and FAR uglier people.

Looking beyond all that, which is fluff anyway, and we get to main course and game cuisinier Crave’s presentation thereof. The briefest glance at the game demo reveals the previous engine heavily intact and voice work returning in the same deadpan package. The control scheme is familiar, the music about breaks even, and unlike before, the framerate actually suffers in 8-player games in the more elaborate (but still under-demanding) venues. The Career mode, which lets you buy into progressively bigger, flashier, and harder games, in reality skips any progression and throws you into the baptismal fire of inhuman AI at the only table whose entry fee you can initially afford. Maybe that’s because, as a non-World Series Poker champ, I wanted to master 5 Card Draw before moving on to names that start with bigger numbers or states or fruits. Is it really fair to have to play 7 Card Stud first, when 5 Card is the easiest game?! And you know what? Some of the best players specialize strictly in one game. A career could be built on going to the top in one variety alone, but this mode makes you sample the whole gamut, and with no difficulty to adjust, the samples are the devil’s brew.

I’ve wanted to learn Poker for some time, but the skills of my would-be, flesh-based teachers are far beyond me, and the UI’s of games and AI’s of digital players seem and more terrifying still. Unless you have the pre-supposed poker knowledge or a rabid appetite for glossaries, of which the manual sadly has none, becoming a competitive or even competent force through WCP: All-In would take some real personal dedication and forgiveness for its lack of change-ups this third time round, especially when there exists more and more internet poker software all the time. If you ask me, that’s where they ought to leave this stuff – it would stand a better chance, if it were actually a learning game, in the receded PC-game market.