Friends, Fun, and Meh: A review of Poker Night at the Inventory

I'm a big fan of Telltale Games and have been since I started playing their revival of Sam & Max a few years back.  They've continued to impress me with continually making games based on well loved IPs such as Strong Bad, Wallace and Gromit, and Back to the Future.  Their games are entertaining and clever, they have good puzzle design and amazing story writing, and they are fun!

So when I saw that they were doing a poker game staring Max, Strong Bad, The Heavy (from Team Fortress) and Tycho (from Penny Arcade,) I thought that it would be a no brainer, especially at $4.49 on Steam.  Let's see what I got.

There's a nice intro showing you "The Inventory."  A back room speakeasy with a poker table.  There are a few NPCs wandering about the place during the intro including Sam.  It's a movie, though, and you go on rails, following the narrator down to the poker table as he explains some backstory about the place.

Then you get to the table and start playing immediately.  The NPCs are always the same (so far, anyways.) Max, Strong Bad, The Heavy, and Tycho.  You start with a stake which you throw down ($10k.)  The game is Texas Hold-em.  Blinds start at $100/$200 and go up at regular intervals.  Play continues until you knock everyone out or are knocked out yourself (although you have the option of watching the rest of the match if you get bumped.)  Once you fold a hand you can press a button to jump to the end of the hand.

Let's talk about the good parts.  Telltale did an amazing job with the dialog.  The NPCs are constantly prattling on about this and that.  They each have an OK number of one liners to deliver as they bet, raise, fold, or check.  They do get repetitive, though, after a few games, but you can't really fault them for that.  They'd need a large number of them for that not to happen.  The gems, though, are the character interactions.  Entire conversations happen between the characters.  These usually happen in pairs with some back and forth banter, but can sometimes include everyone at the table.  The pairs thing is obvious, though, since the number of players is always decreasing and you want to make sure that they still have something to say.

These conversations are hilarious and appropriate to the characters.  They often contain in-jokes that are funny even if you don't know the reference (which is tough to do.)  Strong Bad taunts Tycho about how many hits his site gets.  Max asks the Heavy about whether he can get him some new weapons.  It's all clever and entertaining and well worth the price of the game.  There are also enough of them that it takes a while before you get repeats and even after 10 or more tournaments, I am still hearing new ones.

There is a decoration mechanic as well.  You "win" new table tops and decks of cards.  The cards come every 3 tournaments you win, and the tables are triggered by specific events like the identity of the last player you knock out.  There is also a collection mechanic.  Sometimes a character wont have the $10k to join the game, so they'll put up an item instead, and if you win the hand that knocks them out, you get the item.  I have three of the four items, so I don't know yet if anything happens when you get them all.

Also, there're apparently some Team Fortress unlockables associated with the game.  I haven't played that game, so I couldn't really say if they're good or not, but if you're into that kind of thing, this game is probably worth getting for those alone.

Now the bad.  This is not a very good poker sim.  There are problems both with the UI and the AI. The UI is minor things like the fact that you have to wait until it's your turn to act.  Most poker sims I've played give you the chance to at least fold a bad hand before it's your turn, and the really good ones let you pre-assign your action and automatically undo it if something changes before your turn comes around.  It's just something I've gotten used to and miss here.

Another minor UI concern is that the controls are all hard to find.  I finally had to hit Esc during a game to locate the ability to change the deck and table designs, and to see what collectibles I had.  That should be a lot easier to find.

As for the AI...  I guess "frustrating" is the best way I can describe it.  The AI feels somewhat stupid and random, but this makes it very tough to play against.  It stays in with bad hands all the time, which is nice when you catch them, but makes it very difficult to bluff.  Also, the various characters all seem to play with the same AI.  I would have much preferred for one of them to be a rock, and one to be super aggressive, than for them all to play the same way.  I'm not 100% sure this is true, but I haven't detected any differences if they are there.

So overall, this is a fun little game and well worth the $5 price tag for the entertaining dialog alone.  There's a bit of metagame there as well.  However, if you're looking for a good poker sim or you don't care about these characters, keep looking.

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