Customer Reviews

Stacked

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Given all the hype and the LOOONNGGG wait for this to finally ship, I must say I was a little disappointed with the PC version of this game.

Interface => B- / C+ It's kind of kludgy while trying to appear slick. There are some nice graphics and some semi-opaque window effects, but in actual gameplay, there are issues. Changing your "play"; call, raise, or fold is difficult because of the tiny icon on the screen. Using the up/down arrows is easier, but hard to control unless you choose to tap, tap, tap. Holding down either arrow causes erratic spurts and is frustrating.

Sound => B+ Not bad, especially if you turn off the music. The voice work is good and not overly repetitive. One bizarre thing is that my character has a German accent while all of the other players...computer and human...sound American.

Graphics => B+ Very good. The players move, scratch their heads, breathe, and generally look very good. My wife noted that a lot of the female character models were "in love with the low cleavage". (Not a completely bad thing from my viewpoint) The casino, table, and surroundings look fairly detailed.

Single play => B+ Quick Play, Career Mode, and Poker School. So far, I've only explored the first two. (Poker School requires you install > 350MB of AVI files of Daniel teaching poker, though you could have them read from CD at SLOW speed) Nothing remarkable, they do what they say. The game starts you with $2000 in chips. You can choose Cash Game, single and multi-table tourneys, as well as limit or no limit games. As you progress, you can "unlock" other casinos (2) and pro players like Negreanu (7). You can "play" with the Pro's likeness in Single Player mode, but not in Multi. So, if you are online with Daniel, it really IS him. (So the manual states. I'm guessing a hack will be out in weeks to mess this up)

Multiplayer => B+ Easy to select or create a game. I found a Cash Game in 15 seconds. I did not seem to experience any lag or delays, even at full tables. There were several tournaments listed, including MTV (a big sponsor tie-in) Showdowns. (there were 7 listed) and a couple of "generic" ones with $1000 chip buy-ins. Note: there is a Speed Play function in Single play not present here. So, if Betty from Omaha is thinking about her hand for 1-2 minutes, you wait. I did not see a clock function available (asking the dealer to put the stalled player on a clock). This needs to be added when they patch this! UPDATE: the Dealer will say "player, please make a play" if someone takes too long, but YOU cannot ask for a clock.

Artificial Intelligence => C So far, I can't give the vaunted POKI engine much in the way of kudos. I played a single table tourney in Single Play mode against "Mixed" opponents (choices are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Mixed) and I won quite easily. Now I am a very experienced tournament player and just finished a run of 7 consecutive final tables, so this is not a totally unexpected outcome. However, I did not feel particularly challenged by the game at that setting. Also, one of the features is Pro Tips / Ask Daniel. In certain game situations, a Tip will be triggered and you can see a pop-up window suggesting what to do. On ANY play where you are to act, you can Ask Daniel. The Pro Tip will always override Daniel, by the way. For the most part, I was underwhelmed. Being told "a check is OK here" with nothing else is just weak. Some of the Tips did have a VERY brief statement or explanation as to WHY you would call/raise/fold, but that's it. This needs to be improved in later versions/patch levels.

Value => B+ It's under $30 most places and does play well with some pleasing graphics to soothe the eyes. It's a good game that has the potential to be great.

Overall the game, graphics and sound are all really good in my opinion. Couple of drawbacks though, if you have a NAT internet connection (no idea what it is but the game detects it to see if you have one), you will not be able to join Online Multi Tournament Tables, but you can still play online in Single Table Tournies. Also, after about 15 minutes of playing, the game just closed, disappeared, all progress lost. Now this has only happened once in about 3 hours of gameplay, so it may be nothing. But it was something to be concerned about.

I have contacted tech support and as of yet, 24 hours later, there is no reply, but they do say it takes them 48 hours to respond to requests.

Overall I am not sure on this game, great idea, seems to have some problems though, perhaps a patch would fix things up.

I play poker ALOT...and needless to say this is the best out there so far. It has one thing that I do NOT like. You cannot type in an exact amount that you may want to bet. Instead you have to use the slider.

Regardless, with that one exception it is by far better than WSOP.

This program is EXCELLENT for the novice/beginner. The "Poker School" videos included with Daniel are super. Even if you consider yourself a "well read" or experienced player, you can still gain some good experience and a little bit of fun here. The aspect of "Career Mode" adds to the aspect of unlocking other events and Pro-Players as you progress.

With all the books, videos and games out there that are trying to tap into the "newbie" crowd....buy this one! Books are great, but experience is better.

Find a local group of players or "club" in your area. Play as much as you can and as much as you can afford. Trade books and videos with each other. Over time, you will be a better player for it.

DON'T BUY THIS GAME!!!!!

Simply put, this game was released without any testing. It's basically in an early beta stage, but you have to pay to test it. It's full of bugs. Trying to play online for more than 10 minutes without getting disconnected is impossible. I can't even find someone to buy my used copy.

Don't be fooled by any cute marketing. This game isn't worth one cent. To be honest, you'll be disappointed if you download a cracked version. It's just a major waste of time.

The AI is so so, but who buys a game to just play against the computer?

DON'T BUY THIS GAME!!!!!

To the guy who said you cannot get the patch without subscribing... Apparently you did not visit the Official Stacked Website. The patch is available there with ZERO hassles.

The game is pretty decent. I enjoy the variety offered. The game has been very stable for me especially with the latest patch.

Try it out, I don't think you will be disappointed. Besides at $20 it is a steal if you ask me.

Yes, it's true . . . this game was delayed for a LONG time. And yes, it was WAY hyped leading up to its release. But that being said, it delivers everything it promised to deliver: high-quality graphics, varied NPC's, and seamless online play. Unlike many online PC games, where it's a chore to find a game, I was seated at a table and playing about 15 seconds after I clicked on Online Play. I'm playing on a 4-year-old system, and haven't crashed once, even though I've spent a lot of time playing the game. It is, by far, the closest re-creation of what it's like to play at a real casino on the market, and for me, anyway, it was well worth the wait.

The graphics are very good and the game play is great, however the advice is ridiculous. for example the advice is to allways call suited cards with the odds of getting a flush on the flop is .84% and flush by the river is 6.4%. On the button or in the small blind the advice is to raise with even a 7-2 offsuit and to check K-10 in the big blind when the small blind limps in.

I really like Daniel Negraneau, but I am sure he didn't win the WSOP by playing like this. This is a recipe for disaster.

Given all of the hype and delays in getting this to the stores, I would certainly have expected more quality. The game itself is limited in what you can do (that is, no extras beyond the poker table), so don't expect a "rich" game experience. It's just poker, and just hold'em at that. As advertised, so no gripes there.

The interface is non-intuitive; check the online settings to get your PC keypad short-cut keys. Using the keyboard makes the game palatable, if it not were for the fact that it crashes regularly on my machine (only 1 year old, so it's not some clunker running an obsolete operating system). The program is extremely buggy; I could not run it in full screen mode because it would immediately crash. Now it is crashing in "windowed" mode.

Very disappointing, this won't get any more play time from me. If you are still eager to buy it, wait. The price should plummet unless the vendor fixes the bugs (used copies are already dropping in price). And then again, maybe they'll fix the bugs.

I thought $[...] was a bargain for what was being promised. I don't feel that way anymore; I overpaid for what I received.

since online poker has been outlawed, and with not wanting to drive all the way to a casino, i've been looking to fulfill my poker fix.

Stacked was most definitely not the answer. if i was hungry for poker, this just made me nauseous.

it is easily the worst poker game i have ever played, and i've played quite a few. i played probably over 100 hands and there were a grand total of TWO preflop raises by the CPU. two. and they were both huge overbet all ins in a tournament. in cash games, i saw zero raises preflop by the CPU. absolutely none.

this game is a farce, i'm glad it didn't do well when it was released and now i see why that was the case. the AI is a complete joke and i can't believe Daniel Negreanu would have actually signed off on this game if he played it for more than 10 minutes against the CPU. what an embarrassment.

The other reviews do a good job of summing up most of the good and bad aspects of the game. I have a few things to add.

You do need to change the default settings to make the game more enjoyable. In the offline game against computer-controlled players, each player has a few different comments they will speak and they will repeat these comments incessantly while you are thinking which is pretty annoying but you can turn them off. You can keep your hole cards displayed all the time if you want. You can keep the action accelerated all the time if you want. These changes can make the game more enjoyable.

There are some problems with the game I didn't see mentioned in the other reviews. In the no limit cash games in nearly half the hands a computer-controlled player will go all-in. This is a bit more frequent than you see in real life.

You may notice funny things during betting after the flop. If you have an opponent beat with a well concealed hand it will fold when you put in the smallest bet but if you bet and the opponent calls it has you beat at that point and you are in trouble. Further betting will not make it fold even if it has a bad hand provided its hand is better than yours. However, an all-in bet on your part might succeed in making it fold.

The winning hands on a showdown are abnormally high. This is the frequency I found from keeping track of 50 winning hands that went to a showdown:

Full House 14%
Flush 8%
Straight 18%
Three of Kind 4%
Two Pair 34%
Pair 20%
High Card 2%

Keep in mind all-in bets are frequent in the game. Usually the player putting in such a bet has a strong hand and usually no other players call them, which reduces the number of strong hands making it to a showdown. After the flop a lot of strong hands are not called so they do not make it to a showdown. Also I would point out nobody in this game plays loose. There are usually an average of about three players seeing the flop and they usually include the small blind and blind, players who can have any two cards.

In real life the Ace-King is a great hand before the flop but as you can see from my statistics on winning hands, if you have that hand, unless an Ace or King appears on the flop you will probably lose and even a pair of Aces is seldom a winning hand in Stacked.

It appears the deck is stacked in this game. I prefer to play a game where the order of cards in the deck is random and computer opponents make decisions based on cards they see.