World Championship Poker 2 (PSP)

As any casino will probably tell you, poker is a very addictive game and as if to prove it I found myself playing this game over and over for no apparent reason. With a nice selection of playing tables, located around the globe from your very own customisable basement, to a London boxing gym, to a tropical hotel, you can play more varieties of poker than I knew existed. Your avatar has a lot of customisation available, you can even give him/her a dogs head if you want to.

Despite this, the game has very little to offer. The active bluff system and RPG skill upgrades seem out of place and an odd choice to add to a game which I believe is mostly based on luck and good judgment. The huge variety of poker rules can be quite intimidating to a new player. Suddenly finding yourself thrown into a high stakes game of Razz Omaha Hold 'Em, with no guidance and looking in the rules only to be told that they are “the same as 7 card stud”, relies on you knowing how to play 7 card stud and sees you quickly losing all your cash just trying to work out how to win with the lowest possible hand. But the worst thing this game throws at you are the load times. They are so slow that the back light switches off while you're waiting!

The bad out weighs the good here unfortunately, but what this game lacks in visual flair is more than made up for by poker being a simply great game.

Released 26th October 2007 by Oxygen.

Written by Nick Gripton.