Poker Club Review (PS5)

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key review info
  • Game: Poker Club
  • Platform: Playstation 5
  • Show system requirements
  • Reviewed on:
Poker Club key art

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em… But can the fancy bells and whistles of customization compensate for the lack of seeing your opponent face to face, trying to read their reactions, and playing the players and not the cards? Poker Club definitely tries to convince you, but the result is not a royal flush.

With no face-to-face interaction in an online poker match, you have to rely on the cards, since you cannot really read the avatars of your opponents. All you actually need is a stable connection to the server, a large enough pool of players, and a matchmaking algorithm that will not keep you waiting forever. After a rough start, the basics have been covered and Ripstone actually managed to put together a decent and fully functional poker simulator.

Wait times are fairly decent, the connection is stable and the poker part works without major hiccups. If you want to play a couple of hands or take part in longer tournaments you can do it without worries about technical issues.

Yet, Poker Club is far from the claims made by the developers who called their creation “the most immersive poker simulation ever made”. Even with all the garnish represented by a lot of customization options, that do not actually add anything to the gameplay itself, the game still feels soulless.

Poker Club
Poker Club
Poker Club
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Yes, you can personalize your avatar, from hairstyle down to accessories, including clothing and tattoos, you have a large variety of game modes and locations, but due to the limitations of the graphics engine, all the avatars look and feel like rejects from the Madame Tussaud museums. There are ways to communicate and express some things, but the process is a bit tedious and feels artificial. You are better off focusing on the cards and the odds.

Not seeing your opponent’s more or less subtle tells it should come down to a game of cat and mice where you try to trick the other players based on the river and your pocket cards. In reality, it can easily become a grind where the key is patience and folding as many cards as necessary until you get a winning hand.

Things get more tedious if you find yourself at the table with slow players who run their timer run out or make a move at the last minute. Being a virtual card game these downtimes can really suck out all the fun from the game.

This is a common issue for all poker simulators, making it hard to keep you engaged. Not that the developers did not try to spice things up by adding different challenges, daily login bonuses, and expensive customization items, really anything they could think of to keep you invested in playing the game. There are many game modes and modifiers from single and multi-table tournaments to freezeouts, shootouts, turbos, super turbos, or headhunting bounties.

If you like Texas Hold’em you will probably find something to your liking, but ultimately it is about the other players you meet. Those you play against will have a major hand in determining if a table turns out to be a fun experience or not. The PCC tournament will put you through the hoops showcasing all the game modes and different locations, also adding on top objectives specific to a single-player experience.

As you eliminate more and more opponents, cash out higher and higher sums, manage to steal the pots, and manage to fulfill other specific tasks you will open your way to new venues and higher stakes. Mixing in both AI and human players it is like an all-you-can-eat buffet that lets you experience all that Poker Club has to offer. The main reason to keep going through the tournament is the XP you earn for any action, no matter if you win or you lose, leading to leveling up.

Each new rank you reach will unlock more and more customization options, and when you raked together enough virtual currency you will be able to found your own club with your own rules. If you do not have such patience you can choose an already existing club to join. Despite the best efforts, the clubs are just like the customization options: an extra trick that does not really enrich the game experience.

The action is presented to you from a first-person perspective in a fully animated 3D world, using 4K resolution on PS5. The visual style is far from photorealistic, there are some collision issues and some textures could be improved, but overall it is a decent effort. Still, the ambiance is dull, not just because of the visuals but also due to the audio part.

The background music does nothing for the game, the sounds and voices are dull and as a result, Poker Club does not offer better immersion than any other poker simulators. Despite the extensive customization options, you will feel like playing against not very well put-together wax figurines. One positive aspect is the UI of the game that offers detailed info about what is going on, and easy access to statistics about other players.

Poker Club
Poker Club
Poker Club
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The Good

  • Several locations and a plethora of game modifiers
  • Stable server connection
  • A large pool of players

The Bad

  • Extensive customization options do not bring added value
  • Often very slow games due to other players
  • Lifeless avatars

Conclusion

Poker Club is fully functional, but a totally bland experience. You have many gamification elements implemented on top of the actual poker game, like the customization options and the clubs. But these do not bring added value, since they do not have real effects on the gameplay experience.

Having fixed most of the technical and visual bugs that plagued the initial release, Poker Club cannot overcome the issues that haunt all the poker simulators. The unpredictability of the human element brings tediousness and a slow pace, without being able to replicate the thrills of playing face to face with another human being.

story 5
gameplay 7
concept 7
graphics 6
audio 5
multiplayer 6
final rating 6
Editor's review
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Poker Club screenshots (22 Images)

Poker Club key art
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