Review Score:

I call your bluff, all in!

TIK games are one of my favourite casual games creators. They’ve made the fantastic Texas Hold Em on Live Arcade, Cuboid for the PS3 and the fantastically addictive Magic Ball for the PS3. They’ve had a couple of dubious entries here and there (Interpol) but on the whole they’re involvement in this generation of gaming has been a much welcomed addition by fans of causal and cards. To find that there was to be a follow on from the successful Texas Hold Em game, it filled us with much delight, as we ploughed hours into the original. However, there was a slight problem. Instead of releasing the title on XBLA they decided to put it onto the overly saturated, mostly dominated by pure shiet Indie Games section of Microsoft’s behemoth console. So with this in mind, we treaded cautiously into the review.

One of the first things that capture you about Hoyle Texas Hold Em is the fact that, we now have full avatar support. This is a nice touch for those that enjoy using their avatars but with no Xbox Live Vision camera support, it felt like a step backwards. Sure the presentation was great, but the original allowed you to take individual pictures for played hands or if the lobby was small enough operate in full video. The game on the whole boasts plenty of statistical features which, allows you to track your previous game play to the point of the hands that you play. You can change variables such as minimum bet, minimum spread and minimum table limit. The title also has a tournament mode but this differentiates in the fact that any A.I can buy in and instead the tournament isn’t about a knock out affair, but instead who rakes in the most cash over 14 hands.

Another thing missing with this title is the fact that there is no longer a scenario mode and whilst they try and balance this by giving you achievement badges, this really is to compensate for the fact that on Indie Games you simply cannot get real achievement points, another knock back then. The game also has an annoying bug when trying to place high bets. The stick is overly sensitive and if you want to place a mid-range bet, you either have to do it by pressing the D-pad a hundred times or tweak the analogue stick as if you’re arousing a cow’s tit. Presentation whilst on the surface is nice, there is obviously a resolution issue as some of the background textures can look grainy and full of noise.

The biggest failure with this game though, despite the gloss and the admirable efforts for presentation, is the choice by Tik Games to launch Hoyle Texas Hold Em on Microsoft’s Indie Games. This has to be one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen. Why? Well, it’s a complete ghost town online. Nobody is around. In fact we tried at 7 different intervals to find a match on different days and no joy. Poker is a social affair, it’s not meant to be enjoyed by computers, it’s meant to be enjoyed over Xbox Live with humans chatting over their Xbox 360 headsets. How the developer did not spot this is totally mystifying. I took my investigation further to find that not even Hoyle mentions this game on their official website, nor does Tik Games provide any forum support for the poor purchasers that genuinely believed there would be anyone playing this online. So whether the game plays well online is as good a guess as yours. Presumably it would, given the smoothness of the XBLA version, but nothing surprises me now.

Buy the XBLA version!

If you can bare playing computers and sit through them making their minds up, then there is probably some fun to be had here. But let’s face it; if you were planning on buying it, then it would have been for multiplayer action. With much regret I am, having to say, save your 400 Microsoft points and spend elsewhere. TIK have made a huge gaff here and the final play testing for this game obviously didn’t include any betting at all. If you’re looking for a decent Texas Hold Em game, then look no further than TIK’s very own XBLA version of the game. When you carry the trademark of Hoyle, you expect the best, instead then we’ve seen the worst. It’s such a shame.

Update: Since reviewing this title Mitzi McGilvray PR at TikGames has informed us that TikGames would have welcomed an opportunity to launch the title on XBLA, however Microsoft makes the final decision on which titles are published on that service.  Mitzi also stated that an advertising drive is in place to bring more players towards the title, so tell a friend to come play!  We’ve let Tik know about the bug on betting and have also asked them whether they would consider launching a community forum for this game. We’ll be interested to see what happens in the future. Title subject to score change if improvements have been made.