Hmm, Poker. A card game that seems to have had a massive surge of popularity of late. There’s Poker all over the place now. On the internet, folk buying the proper tables for the real thing and good old Xbox Live too. As someone who actually knows very little about poker, I thought reviewing Poker Smash would be tricky. However, after loading it up, a smile crept across my face and my feelings of ill ease turned to subtle pleasure.
Poker Smash doesn’t involve sitting around a virtual table betting and hoping that your hand will be better than the next persons at all, it’s a neat little puzzle game where you smash the cards by setting up legal poker hands. The cards rise from the bottom of the board, a row at a time and by moving cards horizontally the idea is that you set up poker hands either vertically or horizontally to stop the cards hitting the top of the board. Using the left analogue stick allows you to choose the card you wish to move, while the right analogue stick actually moves the card. If you move the right stick quickly, your chosen card will even fly across gaps should you desire it to do so. The game is made simpler by the limiting of card values on the board and colour coding each type of card. The deck is made up of 10’s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces only.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that vertical Poker smashes would be the way to go and horizontal ones not particularly frequent, due to the nature of the controls. However, you do have somewhat of an Ace (clever, eh) up your sleeve in the form of bombs which can be used to blow up cards and thus drop cards into horizontal rows. You have a maximum of five bombs at any given time, but scoring allows you to earn more.
In the Action Mode, you just keep playing until your cards hit the top, the cards gradually appear faster and faster until, if you’re anything like me, you’re just matching three of the same card to gain the smashes. Sometimes you catch a break and luck steps in giving you something decent like a full house, but for me, panic set in and I ended up matching my colours to smash my cards, meaning the poker element was kind of pointless for me and I may as well have been playing Columns or some other brick exploding game. Every so often a timed challenge appears on the right of the screen where you can gain a bonus score by matching the cards shown. Quite satisfying if you manage it.
To help you along, the right trigger button activates slow motion, but this is yours for a limited time only so make sure you really want it when you activate it. It is particularly useful when your cards start wobbling and alerting you to the fact that the end is nigh, or when you’re trying to complete one of those random challenges. The right trigger by contrast, speeds things up. When I first saw that, I thought it would be the last button I’d be pushing, but it actually proves pretty useful in the setting up of combos and when you can see a much needed card appear at the bottom of your screen.
There are several modes to choose from, ranging from the aforementioned Action Mode, to Puzzle Mode in the single player. Each mode being explained on the right hand side of the screen when highlighted. Action Mode is a high score based game, Puzzle Mode challenges the player to clear all of the cards on the board to move on, Timed Mode challenges you to gain high scores within a set time limit and gives you the option to save your replay to the Theater and watch it again. You can also create your own Playlists using themes purchased (with your in-game winnings) from the Poker Smash Store.
Multiplayer options include split screen, playing against your opponent, Player Match, pitting you against up to four other players and Ranked Match, which is, well, exactly what it says it is. Unfortunately, at the time of reviewing, I was unable to find any online games to play. This makes me sad. So, we’ll swiftly move on…
Graphically, I found it quite a delight to view. Bright, colourful with a lot going on, from the pulsing of cards to give you a gentle nudge in the right direction when a column is getting close to the top, to the way chips fly at the screen when you earn them. Seeing as this puzzle game is poker based though means that there is a lot to look at and match up and as I have already mentioned, when the game gets real quick, this isn’t at all easy. The music isn’t at all annoying, just a little repetitive, but that is easily forgivable.
I found Poker Smash to be an enjoyable little puzzle game, even with my limited expertise at the actual card game. Who knows, it may have actually taught me a thing or two.
