Review - Poker Night 2 (PC)

Poker Night 2 is not a realistic poker simulator; it's a casual poker game that focuses on tie-ins with its video game characters and incentives in the form of in-game unlockables. In addition to Texas Hold'em, you will also be able to play Omaha Hold'em. The simplicity of Poker Night 2 is great for those who are new or inexperienced with the game, since it will let you learn the basics without pressure or fear of monetary loss. Poker veterans though may be put off by the sometimes idiotic AI and the terrible plays they make for seemingly no reason. Like the first game, Poker Night 2 is single player only and your opponents are always the same four characters. The beauty of real Texas Hold'em is that there is so much more to the game than just the cards that are dealt. It's a mind-game that forces you to analyze who you're playing and how previous hands, chip stacks, the way people bet, body language and other such tells all play a part in determining what your opponents are representing that they have in their hand.

I normally play a fairly defensive play-style in real poker, protecting my chips and slow grinding my way to a healthy chip count. Poker Night 2 is fast paced and favors aggressive play. Blinds increase every five hands, forcing players to make moves much earlier than normal. This is reminiscent of a few online poker tournaments that I've participated in, so fans of that style should be well accustomed to the speed of Poker Night 2. The AI in Poker Night 2 is largely predictable, often placing more emphasis on what they're holding in their hand than what's on the board. After a few tournaments I realized that it was quite easy to bully the AI opponents around with moderately large bets.

One of the biggest draws to the first Poker Night at the Inventory game was the 4 unlockable Team Fortress 2 items. Poker Night 2 improves on this by having 10 different items you can unlock, 5 for Team Fortress 2 and 5 for Borderlands 2. In the first game, players will randomly buy in with an item as opposed to with money, and eliminating that player from the tournament will earn you their item. This was incredibly easy to exploit, since you can constantly restart the tournament in the first game until someone bought in with an item, and then attempt to eliminate that one specific player. If he plays, you play, hoping to draw him out into an all-in situation. It only took me 3 hours to unlock every item in the first Poker Night at the Inventory game. In contrast, it took me roughly 7 hours to unlock all the items in Poker Night 2.

Poker Night 2 uses a different system to its unlocks. There are 5 bounty items, each unlocking a Team Fortress 2 and a Borderlands 2 item. In order to get a character to buy in with their bounty item, players must complete 3 random bounty challenges, such as "Stealing a hand at the turn" or "Win a tournament with 25% or higher win percentage." These challenges do not all need to be done in the same tournament and once you complete all three, the next tournament you win will unlock a bounty item. This makes the unlock process much harder to exploit and closer to actual tournament play. In addition to the bounty items, you can also unlock items for use in the game, such as new chips, decks, and tables. These use tokens which are awarded to you after each tournament based on where you place. Get knocked out first and you receive 0 tokens, but if you place second and get knocked out last, you receive 50 tokens.

You will face up against Brock from the Venture Bros, Claptrap from Borderlands, Ash from Army of Darkness, and Max from Sam & Max. Also, GLaDOS from Portal appears as your dealer. Each of these characters are equipped with a wide variety of one-liners that they will occasionally inject into the conversation. While entertaining enough the first few times you hear them, once they begin to repeat, the novelty begins to wear off and it just starts to become stale. At times, you can't make a move until a character has finished speaking, which just ends up delaying the game. It would be much better if the characters simply spoke amongst themselves as they played, keeping the game moving along at a steady pace.

Poker Night 2 may not be the most realistic poker game out there, but it's plenty of fun and entertainment for a very small price. A well-paced and rewarding unlock system will keep you playing for hours, and the AI is considerately better than the first game. There will still be instances where you'll scratch your head at why the opponent made a certain move, but this unpredictability helps switch things up a bit and make it so that you're not constantly reminded that you're playing against computer opponents. My biggest complaint though is that there still is no multiplayer support. In almost every other aspect, Poker Night 2 improves upon its predecessor.

Final Score: 7/10