Telltale Game's Poker Night 2

April 22 - April 26

Section: 

I was doing some research to write this, and set off a game trailer. It stopped playing and started buffering at the black ESRB warning screen on the front. Right at that moment my younger son walked in to bother me, did a double-take and said, "Ooh, simulated gambling?" This says something I probably shouldn't know about his weekend, and our game of the week.

Telltale Games comes in with a second installment in their Poker Night series. This time, it's Brock Sampson, Claptrap, Ash, and Sam (of Sam & Max fame) bellied up to the felts, with GlaDOS dealing. To sweeten the deal they included a large collection of items for Team Fortress 2 and Borderlands 2 gear.

Dead Island Riptide (a sequel to last year's tropical zombie nightmare) deserves a mention. The first game's visceral take on the zombie genre came through from trailers to closing credits. Early word is this one is more of the same, for better and for worse.

If you're on the look for something a little quirky, Thomas Was Alone is an indie platformer/adventurer that's been around for a couple years but has made it's way to the PS3/vita (it's a cross-buy).

PC

- Dead Island Riptide

- Don't Starve (download - $15)

- Dyad (download - $15)

- Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine (download - $15)

- Telltale Games' Poker Night 2 (download - $5)

- Star Trek

- StarDrive (download - $30)

Xbox 360

- Dead Island Riptide

- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

- Star Trek

PlayStation 3

- Dead Island Riptide

- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

- Fire Pro Wrestling (PS2 Classic)

- God Mode (PSN - $10)

- Star Trek

- Thomas Was Alone (PSN)

Vita

- Draw Slasher (PSN)

- Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R (PSN)

- Thomas Was Alone (PSN)

Nintendo 3DS

- Mega Man 4 (Virtual Console)

- Puzzler World 2013

PSP

- Black Rock Shooter: The Game

Nintendo DS

- Puzzler World 2013 (DSiWare)

Comments

Don't let Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen get lost in the shuffle. It includes the original game, plus the expansion for $40. It's a great deal for a great game!

Can't see the need to pre-order Poker Night 2... $5 and the old game, which I swear everyone here already has. No other bonus items for pre-order. Might as well wait until it's $2.50 in a couple months?

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen is my pick. Will definitely be picking it up in the upcoming weeks

I think I remember Sands saying the first Poker Night was a solid poker simular with some humor. I don't think that's enough to get me to pull the trigger, but we do have some hatte addicts around here.

I guess I should have made a really controversial choice, like Black Rock Shooter.

Missed out on Dragons Dogma first time around - time to give it a whirl I think.

LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS JRPG REVOLU—

[sounds of door being kicked in, scuffle, shots being fired.wav]

I'll be getting Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen at some point. Probably not at $40 though. I'm enjoying my backlog too much to rush out and buy it right now.

Really surprised you passed over the gem that is Don't Starve. It just came out of beta, and is a steal at $15 for such a great little title.

Dragon's Dogma for sure, but I also already have Don't Starve and Monaco. Can't wait to dig into those.

To anyone on the fence about Thomas Was Alone, I'd like to nudge you over. I just finished it a couple of weeks and ago, and it's a really solid platformer, kinda quirky, very endearing. Definitely won me over!
I myself am still hesitant about Poker Night 2... I mean, when's the last time I played the first one? Do I really need another Poker game?

UMOarsman wrote:

Really surprised you passed over the gem that is Don't Starve. It just came out of beta, and is a steal at $15 for such a great little title.

I almost feel like this got over-marketed. That's a weird thing to feel, especially for an indie title.

Eleima wrote:

To anyone on the fence about Thomas Was Alone, I'd like to nudge you over. I just finished it a couple of weeks and ago, and it's a really solid platformer, kinda quirky, very endearing. Definitely won me over!

This one I've gotten a handful of gentle nudges for. I may by eccentric, but that's definitely a marketing approach that I respond better to.

Any one going to pick up Monaco on XBLA? Looks fun.

FYI, Telltale Games' Poker Night 2 will be out for PSN and XBLA, too. It's also going to be available for the Mac.

I'll probably get it, but I'm more interested in the new Full House Poker coming out soon on XBLA. The current one is the best video game poker ever to get released, as it uses realistic amounts and timing for the blinds.

If they could make it a little harder to get your initial chips, like with a minigame or such, it could be great. If losing that last stack or busting out meant you had to play a game you didn't want in order to get more chips, then folks would be less likely to play so dumb.

Fake money poker is always iffy, but I've seen it done well before with Poker Academy Online. They handled it with what they called Freerolls, which was exactly the kind of horrible poker people want to avoid. But you would win chips there, and then take them to tables, where if you busted you had to go back to the freerolls.

And then they had an assortment of tables, for tourney or ring play, with different priced buy-ins. The goal was to progress up to the higher levels and then maintain. The higher the level you could play, the more realistic the play. It wasn't a perfect simulation, but it was fun and made good strategic sense.

There are elements of this in Full House Poker, but I doubt even the new one will push it this far.

Sounds like the worst release week since New Year's.

But possibly...what is that Star Trek game? Some kind of putrid film tie-in or an actual game worth evaluating?

Keithustus wrote:

But possibly...what is that Star Trek game? Some kind of putrid film tie-in or an actual game worth evaluating?

I just saw it the other day when Amazon was giving some pre-order bonuses for it. It claims to be a standalone story, with the new movie actors doing voices. So it's possible that it won't suck completely.

But not sure if it's supposed to be a bridge story between the two movies or just some standalone by itself thing? And I have seen zero pre-release coverage of it. No behind the scenes, no preview videos, no catch-all here... although I haven't particularly been looking. Really the game just popped on my radar last week with the credit/pre-order notice at Amazon.

So... I dunno... find out if it's any good will ya?

Keithustus wrote:

Sounds like the worst release week since New Year's.

Seriously?

With Monaco finally releasing, and Don't Starve?

Calling it "worst" seems like pushing it a bit.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'll probably get it, but I'm more interested in the new Full House Poker coming out soon

I get that some people really liked Full House, but I'm not very tempted to buy a poker game skinned with the Tanners.

wordsmythe wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'll probably get it, but I'm more interested in the new Full House Poker coming out soon

I get that some people really liked Full House, but I'm not very tempted to buy a poker game skinned with the Tanners.

Kimmy!!

Gnoupi wrote:
Keithustus wrote:

Sounds like the worst release week since New Year's.

Seriously?

With Monaco finally releasing, and Don't Starve?

Calling it "worst" seems like pushing it a bit.

Yes, seriously, there's been at least something interesting in pretty much every week of 2013 until this one, and this one might have a decent Star Trek game, possibly. Monaco is an IGF coop game about French....no reason to go on. Don't Starve looks like it could be worth a look, though.

Keithustus wrote:
Gnoupi wrote:

Calling it "worst" seems like pushing it a bit.

Yes, seriously, there's been at least something interesting in pretty much every week of 2013 until this one.

What's "interesting" is going to vary person-to-person. Maybe the other 51 weeks of the year will cater to you better.

wordsmythe wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'll probably get it, but I'm more interested in the new Full House Poker coming out soon

I get that some people really liked Full House, but I'm not very tempted to buy a poker game skinned with the Tanners.

IMAGE(http://media.tumblr.com/f722aa9493a1532be5479525848e9bc1/tumblr_inline_mfh39eptGe1r20waj.gif)

StarDrive is going for $24.99 until April 26th on Steam.

Yeah just heard on my Facebook feed, Monaco is delayed on XBLA. Steam version still comes out tomorrow though!

Keithustus wrote:

But possibly...what is that Star Trek game? Some kind of putrid film tie-in or an actual game worth evaluating?

There are 0 reviews at Metacritic, of PS3, 360, or PC versions. Not a good sign. If they didn't get the game out to the press before release, it probably sucks and they didn't want bad reviews hurting day 1 sales.

The user reviews for the versions are mixed. A lot of complaints and accusations going around about people that work for the game company giving high reviews or people that are just trolling star trek giving bad reviews. Hard to figure out what the real deal is.

wordsmythe wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'll probably get it, but I'm more interested in the new Full House Poker coming out soon

I get that some people really liked Full House, but I'm not very tempted to buy a poker game skinned with the Tanners.

Stele wrote:

There are 0 (Star Trek) reviews at Metacritic, of PS3, 360, or PC versions. Not a good sign. If they didn't get....

Thanks for looking into this. Guess I'll wait.

Keithustus wrote:
Stele wrote:

There are 0 (Star Trek) reviews at Metacritic, of PS3, 360, or PC versions. Not a good sign. If they didn't get....

Thanks for looking into this. Guess I'll wait.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/1GzFnPV.jpg)