Writings of Mass Deduction

I’d previously reviewed “Poker Night”, a game that is like a love letter to poker. At the time I passed on an alternative poker game “Hoyle Texas Hold ’em”, but an update to the game has made the latter a better option than before.

Whereas “Poker Night” has almost every imagineable variant (including the ones I played on my beloved Intellivision as a kid, such as Five Card Draw, Five Card Stud, and Seven Card Stud), “Hoyle Texas Hold ’em” has just Texas hold ’em. Of course, to many people that is the only variant of poker these days (for better or for worse).

If you’re a fan of any variant *other* than Texas hold ’em, I would simply get the brilliant 80 Microsoft Point “Poker Night”. If you’re primarily interest in hold ’em, though, “Hoyle Texas Hold ’em” is nicer looking, now has support for up to 10 players online, is a nicer looking title, has the Hoyle licence (rare for an indie game), and has superior AI for solo play (must be easier to come up with AI for one game variant than for dozens). It’s 400 Microsoft Points, but being a licenced game, and looking as good as a typical Xbox Live Arcade game, that seems fitting.

Here’s what the developer (TikGames1000) has to say about the game:

“Hoyle Texas Hold ‘em delivers the very best of Hold ‘em style poker for the Xbox 360. Choose to play with up to 9 friends or against any combination of AI and Live players. Customize your game type by choosing limit, no limit, spread limit and table limit style games. Full support of Microsoft’s Avatars let’s you bring your own style to the game.”