It’s poker. At a stretch, it’s poker done well. There’s your review. There is no bullet-time meter that you build up with strong play, allowing you to switch cards with your opponent under the cloak of slow-mo. There is no stealth section where you have to sneak through a series of ventilation shafts, infiltrate an enemy base and karate chop Mr Big to the back of the neck while dangling from the ceiling like a monkey. There is no artwork to unlock, there are no realistic physics to brag about and there’s no real-time weapon change. It’s just poker, pure and simple.

However, there is a storyline! We jokingly put “there is no storyline trying to give poker a backstory” but what do you know, there actually is. We’re not going to spoil it for you. Not because the storyline is a seamlessly woven fabric of suspense, intrigue and drama but because it’s so hilariously bad, it somehow stumbles its way back to being entertaining again. Yes, a storyline. In poker. This shows how eager Left Field is to flesh out a card game that isn’t very... fleshy.

If you know nothing about poker, it’s fine. There’s a tutorial section where a cowboy who needs a haircut and a shave explains everything to you, from the rules to the psychological intricacies such as double-bluffing and whatever else. Apart from why he hasn’t yet had a haircut or a shave. It’s slightly disturbing taking advice from someone who looks like he’s stumbled out of a Village People party but hey, he’s only here to help.

Inevitably, the cynical amongst you will be brushing the tutorial aside like the cool people you are and wondering what this has over Texas Hold ‘Em on Xbox Live Arcade. The game that costs 800 Microsoft Points, also known as £6.80, also known as infinitely cheaper than a full-price game. The answer depends on what you’re after. If Sir wants to monkey about with his chips, throwing them around like Frisbees and just wants to have fun with his friends, then Marketplace’s cheap mini-poker is perfectly adequate. If you’re a discerning poker player with a furrowed brow who likes working out percentages and the mind game behind it all, it’s better to go for this.

The main reason is that the artificial intelligence of the players you’re up against is razor-sharp, a surprisingly close imitation of human behaviour – fear, doubt, arrogance and complacency. Not so much in the three lines of taunting they spit out over and over again or the ‘thinking’ animations that can’t be skipped, more in the way they play their cards. Unlike Texas Hold ‘Em, you can’t chase your opponents off the table by going ‘All-In’ every other round. Opponents here harass you, confuse you and end up chasing you off the table. It’ll take a real poker enthusiast to appreciate what’s going on under the bonnet.

There’s a nice career mode where you slowly work your way up the championship ladder, going from the poker tables with your friends to Las Vegas where you’re playing for millions of dollars. It never really changes but there’s a nice sense of progression, just about enough to keep you playing. You won’t care for the real-life poker players drafted in to fill the high-end tables, nor will you particularly care for the predictable, linear structure of the career mode (though to be fair, what are you expecting? Side missions saving burning villagers?).

In the end, World Series Of Poker is about the little touches. The way you have to peek at your cards to see what hand you have, the way players stand up when they go all-in and the way the controls have been set so you can’t accidentally make a move when you’re mashing A to skip the animations. A lot of effort has gone into crafting this game of poker. More than has gone into crafting the visuals anyway, which make World Series Of Poker look like an injured Dreamcast game that has been kicked in the face for talking too much about rivers and turns.

Yet regardless of how many cute touches there are, the majority will be lost on the novice. Poker is poker is poker, no matter how it is dressed up. To that end, those who aren’t massively into the card game shouldn’t bother when there’s a cheap version floating around Marketplace’s murky waters. For the hardcore poker fan… it’s good. It’s solid. It’s the best virtual replication of your favoured card game ever. What else do you want? It’s poker. Enjoy it.

Ryan King