Flash forward to now. Texas Hold ‘Em has steadily grown in popularity around the States; in part because of the celebrity games that get televised to no end, and because its just a damn good game to play. Unfortunately the side effect of this popularity has created a mass of horrible poker players, and I’m of the mind that the Texas Hold ‘Em market is damn near over saturated. And if you don’t think so, just look at the recent in flux of Poker console game releases that have hit just within the past few months.

Well ladies and gents, here’s another one for you.

World Poker Tour is brought to us by 2K Sports, who also put out World Championship Poker. Don’t feel bad if you think the names sound pretty similar, because they do. Apparently naming your Poker Cable TV show doesn’t require a degree in creativity.

I will say that World Poker Tour is probably the best console based Poker game I’ve played yet. There’s a wealth of poker to be had besides Texas Hold ‘Em, I like the idea of trying to bluff your opponent by causing your player to show certain emotions (even if I’m not quite sure it does anything) and the Career mode is fairly involved and fun to play. Online play is featured, but unfortunately there’s no option to filter out the myriads of idiots more interested in making jokes about their genitals than they are about actually playing cards. Sigh.

You start off the game by creating an Avatar. You can do quite a bit with the slider scale they give you, and you can eventually unlock more and more to change up your look as you progress through the game by obtaining chips for certain hands and play strategies. Once you’ve done that, you can then either enter into a quick game of poker, or begin the Career mode.

Career mode is really well rounded, and provides you with some nice Casino locations to play out your tournaments in. You don’t get to see much of the actual location, but it’s a nice little feature of realism to fans of the sport. You can then either buy into a larger tournament, or start off in one of the smaller, yet cheaper tournaments available. By doing so, you can win a spot in the next tournament in the tier, bypassing the entrance fee and saving a little cash in the long run.

You’ll occasionally find yourself up against some recognizable Poker Celebrities, but World Poker Tour is beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to who is still available to appear in these games. You won’t find Phil Ivey here, but you might recognize Phil “Unabomber” Laak, Evelyn Ng, or Antonia “the Magician” Esfandiari. I didn’t, but hey, I don’t follow it on TV all that closely. Typically, however, you’ll find yourself pitted against random, run of the mill people. The celebrities only pop up every so often, which is a bit of shame, as I would think that would be a bigger selling point to the game.

The computer AI does seem to be slightly improved from what’s come before in the genre, but it remains far from intelligent. You can easily out bluff your opponent, as the majority of the time, regardless of their hand, they’ll simply check, check, check away. All it generally takes is an “All In” to make them fold and toss free money in your direction. At times they’ll make use of the emotion options that you also have available, but it’s really difficult to tell if they’re just randomly done or actually convey the hand your opponent has. Likewise, its difficult to tell if the emotions you use actually have an effect on how the AI responds. It’s a neat idea, but whether the whole deal works or not is pretty suspect.

The character models are pretty bland, and at times extremely hideous. It’s a shame that a bit more time couldn’t be spent on improving them as they’re pretty much all you have to look at besides the cards. Also, the announcing provided by Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten quickly becomes tiresome and repetitive. The quips are pretty lame, and they sound nearly as bored with the game as you are of them.

So while World Poker Tour is a step in the right direction for console based Poker games, it’s definitely a very small step. Large improvements need to be made to the AI to make the game challenging and enjoyable, and more time needs to be spent on improving the character models and announcing work. If you’re jonesing for a fix of poker and can’t pony up a few friends and a deck of cards, then perhaps this game will work for you. Otherwise, stick to real opponents until developers find a way to drastically improve the AI or Skynet manages to take over the world. Whichever comes first.