With the recent release of Poker Night 2, which I’m uncertain about playing featuring as it does the grating and forced character of Claptrap (Borderlands), I thought it about time I wrote something about its predecessor, which I’ve been quietly plugging away at for the last few months.
Poker Night at the Inventory felt like a bit of a departure for Telltale Games back in 2010, with the established independent studio being best known for its modern-day takes on point and click classics such as Sam & Max and Monkey Island – between 2006 and 2010 the studio pumped out twenty episodic releases for these two franchises alone. As it turns out, though, Telltale’s first game as a studio was a poker title: Telltale Texas Hold ‘Em, released in 2005 to test the waters of digital distribution. TTHE’s engine powers Poker Night at the Inventory.
I’ll freely admit I had no idea this was the case before I clicked over to Wikipedia to verify Poker Night’s original release date. Funny how these things turn out.
I’ll also freely admit that when I bought Poker Night at the Inventory I did so to unlock wearable items for Team Fortress 2. Back in 2010 my interest in TF2 was rekindled in a way it hadn’t been since I’d aggravated my RSI during the 2007 beta. This, unfortunately, included an irrational interest in cosmetic items for my characters that I myself would not be able to see in-game.
Whilst I’m harshing my own vibe, dude, I’ll also admit to spending a few hours on those ghastly TF2 achievement-grinding servers. All this to acquire some new weapon variants! At least those had effects in-game.
Still, those TF2 items got Telltale a sale. I played a few tournaments, despite my near-total ignorance of how to play poker. As a kid I was taught to play Brag, and it’s similar enough to that that I could, er, more or less get by. I somehow managed to unlock one item and then I packed the game in.
Fast forward a few years and I noticed the game in my Steam library. I fired it up whilst eating lunch and played through a tournament. I decided it was pretty good fun and I’d play more. Running through a tournament over lunch became if not routine then a recurrent habit.
I recall reading John Walker giving Poker Night at the Inventory a bit of a dressing-down back in 2010, criticising it for playing a poor game of poker. This is a criticism I hear widely levelled at poker games and I can imagine there’s a difficult balance to strike in coding AI routines for a game that’s as much about psychology and deception as poker. John was a bit of a poker whizz, I gathered, so I thought it was fair enough they didn’t think much of the game.
In space year 2013 I have to say that Poker Night at the Inventory plays a good enough game that it gives me a run for my money. Since I’ve already admitted to being a poker noob that may not stand for much, but to put it another way figuring out the rules of poker is pretty simple, working out strategies and what is typically best to do in certain situations only takes a little experience, and you don’t have to worry about your poker face because unless you’ve left your webcam on, no one here is watching you (this may not be true of the game’s sequel, in which the dealer is famously lucid AI GLAdOS from Portal).And still I sometimes find myself falling into a trap the AI opponents have laid for me; for example, they somehow recognise that I believe I have a good hand but that they have a (often fractionally) better one, and so they gently draw me out whilst I’m aggressively doing the same to them, before the cards hit the table and a sinking feeling hits me.
Perhaps it’s just chance, or perhaps the game’s showing the AI what my cards are, but whatever: it feels organic enough that I’m enjoying it, win or lose. Best of all, I no longer give a shit about unlocking items for Team Fortress 2. Although I will take that watch from you, Tycho, if it’s the last bloody thing I do.
It’s also worth noting that the banter from the various characters can become grating through repetition, but there are enough lines in there that if you set the amount of speech to the lowest point above silence, it’s generally maintained at a level that you’re not clucking with irritation and waiting for characters to shut up so you can see the damn cards.
So: if you are a bit shit at poker, but like playing it, and like the characters featured here (Max from Sam & Max, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, Tycho from Penny Arcade and the Heavy from TF2), and would like to play poker on your own but not sit in silence, then Poker Night at the Inventory might still be the budget purchase for you.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer to play against Ash (Evil Dead), Brock Samson (Venture Brothers), Sam (Sam & Max) and, ngggn, Claptrap, with GLAdOS hovering over you, then Poker Night 2, then the second game, which is almost identically priced, may be up your street.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer to play poker against human beings, then a pack of cards is considerably cheaper than either game. Friends who can play a tolerable game of poker, of course, are not.
