World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions 2007 Review (X360)

• Title: World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Publisher: Activision
• Developer: Left Field
• ESRB: “T” For Teen
• Genre: Poker
• Pros: Lots of settings to set the pace; decent gameplay; digimask face creation; earning Achievements almost makes up for the fact you aren’t playing with real money
• Cons: It can be hard to keep your interest unless you are a hardcore poker fan; presentation isn’t too hot

Features

WSOP offers both single and multiplayer modes as well as a variety of poker variants to choose from. The career mode starts you off in your house playing with some buddies and eventually moves you on to casino tournaments and the big money events. Wins earn you the most progression points and cash, but just getting to the final table and earning some money is good enough for you to move through the career mode.

Multiplayer games play out just like any other online poker game. They can be slowly paced, depending on who you are playing with, but the social aspect of poker is the real key to it all and it shines here. You can also use your Xbox Vision Camera so that a small image of you pops up onscreen when it is your turn, which is pretty nifty.

The problem of not having any real feeling of risk/reward is another issue for poker games. When you aren’t playing with your own money, it is very hard to stay interested unless you are a hardcore poker player. You do dumber things and just press forward when it isn’t your money on the line, so the experience isn’t anywhere close to what playing real poker is like. WSOP: Tournament of Champions offsets this recklessness by taking advantage of the Xbox 360’s Achievement system. It offers you actual motivation to play correctly and it holds your interest because you now have something worthwhile to play for. For hardcore poker fans, this isn’t that big of a deal since they would play it anyway, but for casual fans, it will make all the difference in the world.

One great feature that we had a lot of fun with is using the Xbox Vision Camera to map your face onto your character in the game. It is easy to do and the results are surprisingly good. Once you have your face in the game, you dress them up in different clothes and you’re all set. The only problem is that your face is static and doesn’t ever animate, but who needs stuff like that when you can make funny faces and make your friends laugh.

The audio portion is pretty bare bones. The music is bad, the commentary is bad (but you don’t hear it very often), and the sound effects are average. I know that there isn’t much sound in poker, but this is just boring. The only sound you ever really hear are the AI players sneezing, which they do about 50 times per game. It is funny to be at a table with several characters all sneezing at the same time.