The Ultimate Hoyle Poker Experience

By Will Barker

I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. I like killing animals with my bear hands and cooking them with an oxy torch, I like cleaning my teeth with a razor blade and sleeping on a bed a straw with naught but my wolf-hound to keep me from freezing in my slumber.

And most of all I like gambling with large amounts of money when I can ill afford to do so. 

Therefore, with the court order in place, my gambling habits have been curtailed, which is where Hoyles Poker Series comes in. It allows me to gamble, but without having to pay back loan sharks who may or may not have high level links with well-known Australian politicians. 

So, having come in from the cold and being accepted by my guardian in the southernmost state of Australia, I lazily sauntered up to the PC and installed Hoyles Poker Series game, which features a range of poker variants, including:

Texas Hold 'Em
Omaha
Omaha Hi/Lo
High Chicago
Cincinnati
Baseball
5 Card Stud
7 Card Stud
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
Jacks or Better
Criss Cross
Dealers Choice
5 Card Draw
5 Card Draw Lo-ball

Why poker, you may be wondering? Well, the card game is gaining popularity right across the globe - and ugly people now have a chance to venture beyond the walls of their dwellings to pit their skills against card players from a wide range of occupations. Even nurses and footballers play this game! First it was the US (hence the name 'Texas' Hold 'Em Poker), then Canada was bitten by the poker bug, followed by Australia and now the list goes on. As the professionals say, it takes two minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

I'm a big fan of Texas Hold 'Em, having lost a fortune on the game at various underground venues controlled by less-than-reputable European 'families', and I must say that it's a delight to play the game on the PC, because it's not only quicker, cheaper, not as smelly (you try sitting next to Ricky The Stinker the four hours), and far less hazardous to ones health, but thanks to the Hoyle AI, you'll always be left guessing whether your rivals are making real bets or are simply bluffing.

The only real area that this game can be judged is on the AI, because the graphics look as though they're from 1994 and the game setup is very simple - sometimes too simple as you can't even skip hands you're playing once you've folded. But the game is cards, and it's random nature is alluring in a ye olde days kind of way. The game itself takes up stuff-all room on the HDD of your PC, with the biggest files being about 380Mb of audio samples. Thankfully there's more than one or two responses from your rivals, and this adds a touch of charm to the game (expect at 4:27am after an lazy 15 hour session...).

The game works well enough and playing the computer AI is often quite challenging at times, not only with Texas Hold 'Em poker, but also the dozen or so other card games. I've never really known much about any card games except poker (and Texas Hold 'Em), blackjack and gin rummy, so giving the likes of High Chicago, Criss Cross and Baseball a try was quite the experience. 

Granted, there isn't a whole lot to this game but basic 2D graphics, four different table surfaces (and chips - cool!), but it's all about the gameplay. And I've got to say it, since the new American bill that's coming in over there, that now bans online gambling (including online poker tournaments) such a game as this could be just the thing to start a clandestine gambling ring over the Internet involving dozens of disgraced businessmen and ex police among others that appears to be simply 'a fun game'. Indeed, if you have an Internet connection at home (our statistics on you guys indicate that most users browse our website from work or school) you can even play other humans and/or intelligent monkeys online. There is no facility to put credit card details on the table, to play with real money as it were, but this won't stop some gamers.

This isn't a game that's going to test your brand new graphics card, the one with the turbocharger and intercooler and big fat waste gate, but it is an enjoyable poker game, featuring almost every type of poker known to mankind. It may not look like much, but it's the kind of game that's good to have loaded on one's laptop for when one is jet setting between Australia and Iceland for one's annual pilgrimage of the enlightened brethren to the Order of the Shakir, for example, or maybe just riding on the train between home and work. Either way, it's a far more entertaining poker package than the game's box art would suggest, and because I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy with a wolf-hound, it works for me.

Game: Hoyle Poker Series
System: PC
Players: 1-8
Online: Yes
Developer: Hoyle (Sierra)
Distributor: Mindscape

Rating: 70%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)