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Gaming Steve Review: Poker Smash
Poker Smash
Developer: Void Star Creations
Publisher: Void Star Creations
Price: $10.00
Platform: Xbox 360
Category: Puzzle
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Release Date: February 6, 2008
If you own an Xbox 360, love puzzle games, poker (or better yet both), then you owe it to yourself to try out the new Xbox Live Arcade game, Poker Smash. A deceptively simple and addicting game, you'll find it hard to put down after one try.
If you've played Planet Puzzle League, then you know the basics of Poker Smash – colored blocks scroll to the top of the screen and you need to eliminate them by matching groups. Groups can be matched horizontally or vertically, but you can only move the blocks sideways. Poker Smash adds in a few interesting twist, and obviously a poker theme.
Blocks are one of the 5 face cards in a standard playing card deck (that includes the 10) and one of the four suits. To score, you create "hands" like flushes, straights, and full houses. Other tweaks to the formula include an FPS like "slow-mo" ability and bombs to clear away unusable blocks. Challenges pop up every minute that ask you to quickly get four kings in a row or make a flush of clubs for a doubled or quadrupled score. Some fantastic presentation that includes having your score tracked with 3D poker chips and some slick, colorful graphics complete the package.
With multiplayer, timed, action, and puzzle modes, the game includes a everything you'd expect in an 800 Microsoft points Arcade game. I implore you to give the game a try and would be surprised if you aren't immediately hooked.
FINAL VERDICT: 9.0 BUY IT!
My wife and I love this game. I also was happy to support a local small development house here in South Carolina. From their website it looks like that there are only 3 people at the studio.
Posted by David C at February 11, 2008 11:58 AMI didn't think I'd like this game, but the poker element is surprisingly new! The demo has a huge chunk, almost 1/5th, of all of the puzzles in the game.
Posted by Robert Gauss at February 11, 2008 2:12 PMIf it we're for the fact that I'm already playing about 5 different games right now, I would probably get this one.
Posted by ilikesanta at February 11, 2008 4:10 PMI downloaded the demo thinking it would be "another puzzle game", something I'll try and delete. I was pleasantly surprised just how fun of a game it was. It was immediately purchased and I have been enjoying it ever since.
Posted by robotplague at February 11, 2008 5:33 PMI almost didn't download the demo because my expectations were so low. However, I was most pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the design. Every aspect of the presentation is well thought out and intuitive in addition to being visually pleasing. Add that to the unexpected novelty of the poker element paired with the Planet Puzzle League concept and it turns out to be a great little game.
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