Poker Night 2 Review: Telltale’s iOS Card Game a Blast, Most of the Time

May 31, 2013 Patrick Hickey Jr. Video Game Reviews, Video Games 0

At first glance, mixing characters from Borderlands, Evil Dead, The Venture Bros., Portal and Sam and Max and making a poker game out of it all wouldn’t work. But with plenty of voiceovers and a solid poker engine, “Poker Night 2,” an admittedly “unnecessary sequel,” is a more than capable card-sim. Oozing with personality and unlockables, “Poker Night 2” turns your iPhone into a late night game of cards you won’t want to fold on.

This has everything to do with the conversation between the characters. Claptrap, Glados, Brock Samson, Ash Williams and Sam work together wonderfully. The banter during gameplay is weird, irrelevant and insane. You’ll love it. Every character has plenty to discuss and boy, do they. From their epic adventures on television, film, comics and video games, the five-some let it all loose. Potty-mouthed, lewd and silly, “Poker Night 2” is entertaining before the cards are dealt. At the same time, the words that are exchanged between players and the dealer during each hand are easily the game’s biggest selling point.

Regardless of the smart use of the creative licenses, the actual poker game is well-executed. Players respond realistically to behavior such as raises, checks and all-ins. But don’t let the whimsical nature of the game fool you; “Poker Night 2” is tough. More often than not, you’ll find the players skilled and smart. Playing “Poker Night 2” could actually make you a better poker player. At the same time, the game flows at a reasonable pace, which makes it easy to play a few hands on mass transit or in between work or console gaming.

There are a few reasons not to go “all-in” though. While there are plenty of voiceovers in the game, it all gets repetitive . After a while, you’ll just want to play poker, making all the silliness overdone. While that takes hours to actually happen, you will get bored of the chatter. There’s also no way to bypass it all either and just get to the game quicker. The 439 MB file size is also a bit much for iPhone owners with limited hard drive space.

In spite of the few misgivings, poker aficionados looking to get their card on, who have the hard drive space, will find it a stimulating and challenging sim that never lets you forget the characters across the table.

The game is also available on the PC, MAC, 360 Arcade, Steam and Playstation Network.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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