Review: Texas Hold 'Em Poker (DS)
Score: 89
One of my favourite gameplay beliefs is that killer games don't have to be complicated, and Texas Hold 'Em Poker bears this out nicely.
In case you've been living on Mars for the last 10 years, Texas Hold 'Em is the poker variant which has become the most popular in the world - in brief, you're dealt two cards and have to start betting, with the remaining four cards being dealt in the middle of the table and being common to all players. I have to confess it's not my own favourite but, hey, this DS version offers you the chance to play five card stud and five card draw as well, ten out of ten for flexibility.
Presentation and animation is largely excellent and the game can be driven completely from the stylus and touch-screen. You may want to turn off the player animations after a while as they're clunky and do slow things down. There are occasional and tasteful sound effects and this is leagues better than the clunky old GameBoy Advance version.
The dual screens are used well, too, enabling viewing of player models, the whole table and your own hand, in various combinations, as appropriate.
Texas Hold 'Em Poker is very focussed - in that you only get to play poker, with no side games or distractions, in my opinion a distinct benefit.
The only real missed opportunity is that there's no single-cartridge multi-play here - in group games, all your friends need to have their own copies, and at £30 a pop this isn't really on. Shame on the developers for going for the easy cash - a proper single-cart 'download' function would have made this into a true 'must have' game for the Nintendo DS.
Aside from this, I'd thoroughly recommend this game to anyone who fancies wasting virtual, rather than real, money down at the super-casino....