The goofy tell system from last year's game is back again this year, and it's not any better than it was before. If you play a strong hand coyly, or try to bluff with nothing, a quick, timing-based minigame will pop up, and depending on where you hit, you'll either blow it and show a tell, do the opposite and act your way through the hand, or simply sit stone faced. The system is still completely exaggerated and a bit weird. The only time it comes into play with computer players is when you've built up one of your statistics high enough to more carefully notice other players' tells. But considering how ultimately predictable and off-kilter the plays the computer players make are anyway, it's not like these tells do much for your game.
All In does feature Xbox Live play, if the AI isn't doing it for you. Hosts can create games from any of the available poker variations, as well as set buy-ins based on their offline bankroll. It's a decent online setup, except that nobody is playing online. Online games are scarce, if not nonexistent. It's unfortunate, because a number of the game's achievements are tied to online play--at least, most of the ones you can actually see. Many of the game's achievements are secret ones, so it's tough to gauge exactly what the balance is, there.
Though few poker games out there provide much in the way of graphical or audio presentation, All In, by far, does the least. The graphics look ancient, even though they're a noticeable upgrade over the PlayStation 2 version released earlier in the year. With extremely blocky character models, stilted animations, and lousy-looking backgrounds and tables, it's hard to find much to like in this game's graphics. While there are a few pro players in the game, they haven't been given decent treatment. Their faces don't animate much, and you get no real banter to speak of. The rest of the time you're playing against ridiculous characters wearing bunny ears, gas masks, and rainbow Mohawks. These players do tend to throw some one-liners at you, but they're all terrible. Goofball announcers periodically throw in painfully dumb and extremely repetitive quips from time to time, and there's an annoyingly surfer soundtrack that sounds like it was lifted out of a Frankie Avalon movie.
No single poker game out there has created the perfect storm of play, presentation, and variety, but few of the recent entries in the genre fail at all of the above at the same level that All In does. Failing to deliver proper hand randomization is simply inexcusable, and once you throw on the ugly graphics, painful audio, and lackluster AI, you get a game just can't compete with what else is out there, even with the competition as middling as it is.
What You'll Pay
- See All Prices
- Set Price Alert
- Price History
