The recent surge of interest in poker is truly amazing. I enjoy playing poker from time to time with my friends, but how poker has recently infiltrated the market is simply astonishing. Now all you have to do is turn on the TV and you will either see various commercials for an online poker place, video games, or some tournament (even celebrity tournaments) going on. Since this is the case it was only a matter of time that a dedicated game would come out for console gamers. If you are a poker player and looking to play a good game off or online then you might want to check out World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer, read on to find out why.

Once you load up the game for the first time you will realize that you will not be able to play the game until you create your own personalized “character” to represent you in the game. The choices in the character creation menu are decent, but not that great, especially when you compare the in-depth character creation to other games such as Tony Hawk and other games where you can create your own character. Once you have finished creating your very own character you will be able to play a couple of different modes: Quick Play, Multiplayer, and Career.

If you want to get down and dirty into a poker game and sort of get your basics down then Quick Play is where you want to be, also the wins and losses do not affect your character stats. In this mode players will get to choose a variety of different options. You can choose which type of poker game you want to play, different stakes, location, and many other choices that make each game personalized. In multiplayer mode you can connect online and play against real live humans to see if you have what it takes to beat other poker players from around the world. In this mode if you have an Eye-Toy and a USB headset you can really get down in the action.

The real meat of this game is to be found in the career mode, which means this starts you off on your professional poker career. As your skills grow you will be able to go to different events from around the world, which means the more money you can receive from winning the games. Each “week” there will be a variety of different venues to play in, such as tournaments which are long games but the prizes are big. Private games are where you play with your friends at home; these are good for getting quick cash. Side games are like private games, but with total strangers, which makes them a great place to practice your skills.

As players progress in the game they will be able to upgrade their “pad.” At first you start off playing in your mom’s basement but if you are successful you will be able to get to much better places. To get better in playing you will want to become more astute so you will have to spend your skill points wisely. The skill points you can buy are keen eyes, which makes it easier to notice player’s bluffs. Another one is stare down which will take them to a mini game to find to if they are bluffing or not. Poker face will decrease the chance of having to go into the mini game. Those are just the tip of the iceberg on the amount of skills that you will have to upgrade to become a better player.

What can make or break a poker game is how the computer AI for each of the characters acts. It is a fine line trying to make an AI that is neither too hard or easy for players to compete against. The developers of World Championship Poker 2 did a good job of finding that balance. A hard thing to do in a game like this is to figure out if someone is bluffing or not, and those mini games that the developers put in really make this game feel more realistic. Putting in the mini game to find out if someone is bluffing can really help your cause; since poker is a lot about strategy and this mini game helps make that aspect alive in this game. The thing that I really liked about the computer controller characters AI is that they each had their own play types and “tell-tell signs”. This made the game a lot more fun and feels more like you are playing against real live players.

The most important thing about developing a poker game is making sure that the computer controlled characters AI is really strong enough to play against. Players want to have the feeling that they are playing against real players, instead of AI that is being really easy or “cheating” to win. After the developers have finished this most important section, the next logical step would be to make the graphics of the game realistic. Unfortunately the graphics in this game are not really that great, what I mean to say is that while they are not “bland and boring” they are not knock-your-socks-off great either.  The character models are pretty bland and even though it offers some variety it really doesn’t seem to be that much. The environments on the other hand have a lot of nice graphical detail touches, but it really isn’t that up to snuff.

The audio for this game is particularly interesting. The announcer for this game does a really good job of keeping up with the game and adding in some snide remarks ever so often. What I was curious to know more about was the different voices that each of the computer controlled characters would have. The game would get really boring and monotonous quick if they all had the same voice. Thankfully the developers recognized this and each of the characters have different voiceovers, and to make things better some even have different accents to make the characters really stand out from one another. The music on the other hand is pretty bad, no strike that, it is really bad. You will want to hit the mute button pretty quick to avoid hearing this music.

World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer is rated Teen for mild language and simulated gambling. It requires 80kb on your memory card. Broadband is required to play online with up to 8 people.

Gameplay: 8.2
If you like playing poker then you will find World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer to be a lot of fun. The career mode will suck a lot of hours out of your life as you try to get the best pad around.

Graphics: 7.5
Graphics for a game of this nature are not really that important as making sure the AI is up to snuff. With that being said the graphics for this game are decent in nature and get the job done.

Overall: 8.1
If you are a fan of poker games and looking for a good poker game for you PlayStation 2 then World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer will be your cup of tea.