Customer Reviews

World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I have two PCs, a state of the art computer (2GB of RAM, Athlon FX-60 processor, Vista, decent graphics card), and an older laptop. On my laptop the game is unplayable as others have reported. On the newer computer, the game plays ok but has a couple major flaws: 1) it will not run in the resolution of my monitor (1280x1024), so everything looks a little distorted; 2) in "medium" speed mode, when you make your choice as a player, it sits and waits for 1-5 seconds before reacting, which is super annoying; and 3) there are way too many unnecessary dialog boxes which pop asking you to confirm and reconfirm your choices.

There issues could all be fixed, along with the issues users have reported, if Activision would issue a patch for this game. If they were to do it, the game would be fun (though it has some other minor flaws I could live with, like useless tips that say "Warning, going on tilt is bad for your bankroll." No kidding.).

As the game stands, it's an embarrassment for Activision and any of the poker players associated with it, especially Phil Hellmuth.

Will Activision step up and fix this unfinished game?

Wow what a disapointment! Couldn't even make it through one hand it was so slow. My computer is less than a year old and has about 4x the minimum requirements as reccomended on the box. I have the '07 version for PS2 and that played fine. I read about poor reviews for the '07 pc version so I waited for '08 to come out. I will contact activision to see if there is any updates. The funny thing is they list hours available, a fax number and an email address. I guess they don't want you to contact them by phone. If I make any progress I will update this review.

My friends and I are just looking for a poker game that we can all play online. If anybody has any recomendations let me know.

My computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE video card. It's better than 90% of the computers in use across the U.S. today. The training videos are choppy. The play is incredibly slow. I use a left-handed track ball; this program doesn't recognize my track ball settings. I e-mailed support with these issues. The e-mail delivery failed. I assume their support e-mail box is full. If these problems are fixed it looks like a great game. Were I you, I wouldn't buy it right now. This is a massive bug that makes this game a cup coaster.

I have experienced the same video problems that many others have with this game. When I first purchased the game I was using an ATI X850XT video card and had no problems playing this game. I recently upgraded my video card to an NVidia 8800GT and the game would go "crazy" after about five minutes with flashing and flaky video problems to where I could barely figure out how to exit the game. It was unplayable and very frustrating. I looked for updates from Activision (of which there were NONE) and read many complaints on the net about others having problems as well. I even updated my video drivers to the latest version at the time. Nothing worked UNTIL today! I just updated my video drivers to the latest version (version 169.38) and now it works perfectly! I don't know what it is about the older NVidia drivers, but they fixed something in this latest version that also fixed the video issues with this game. I recommend anyone who has a fairly recent NVidia card to update to this driver version and see if it works for you. I don't think the ATI cards are having same issues, but I could be wrong. Hope this helps! As far as the game itself, it is very enjoyable once it all works and I do recommend it if you can get it to work properly.

TECHNICAL REVIEW:
I'm running the game on Windows 2000. It works flawlessly except when I go into Phil Hellmuth's Poker School. The video side box with Phil talking cuts in and out(sound); making this part of the game useless. I'm disappointed by this and hope a patch will fix it. Other than that, I haven't experienced any video or sound related problems running 1024x768 screen resolution.

SPEED REVIEW:
Speed Issues:
Normal:
The game in Normal mode is just way too slow all the way around. The PC players react at a snails pace. After one or two games at this speed, you'll be wanting for a faster game.

Medium:
At medium speed, the game is just about right. The pc players make their decisions reasonably quickly as does your own player; most of the time.
Sometimes, even in medium speed, there is an unacceptable delay between your input command being followed. Overall, its ok most of the time.

Here's where the game could be better:
When in medium speed, the game should 'slow down' when 2 or more players go 'all in'. The suspense is a bit lost when the Turn and River cards come up too quickly.

My hope for future versions of the game would be to have pc players to bet within about 4 seconds; about what they do at medium speed now. Then, on an 'all-in' bets to slow down to the 'Normal' level for the turn and river. That would be the best of both worlds!

Fast:
The players fly through their bets like lightning. It's a nice feature to have if you want to play a quick tourney. But, a lot of the game experience is lost when playing fast.

GAMEPLAY, GRAPHICS, AI:
The artificial intelligence is first rate. These pc players are highly skilled. They come over the top & bluff with precision. If you win a bracelet, you've earned it! The graphical representation of the players is good and their voices are real.

CONCLUSION:
A fun game when played at the Medium speed level. Still, to enhance the game, the speed needs to be tweaked a bit; pc players need to make their bets faster and 'All-In' bets slower at Medium speed level. Some technical issues to overcome. A patch would be nice. I totally recommend the game.

First off - this game works fine on my four-year old 2.2 MHz P4 running XP Pro. I installed it, it's fine. Gameplay's a little slow (I have it set on "Normal"), but that's more realistic than a lot of online games, frankly. The instructions are non-existent.

But the AI? I've seen reviews that say the players' playing style is just like real life. Umm...not so much. These players all play the same way (so far - I've only had the game for a week.) I've never seen Scotty Nguyen and Johnny Chan check all the way through a hand in a real tournament, and they're not the only ones. All of them are predictable as anything. I had David Williams to my right in my first tournament, and I knew each and every time that, if nobody called and he was in the small blind, he was going to go all in to try to steal my big blind - all I needed was a marginally playable hand to call and bust him. Actually, most of the players do that - go all in in the small blind in a steal attempt. And most of them succeed because the AI player to THEIR left folds every time. In my first tournament, I've been one of the chip leaders throughout and am currently at the final table with six players left. I don't think I'm really good enough to do that well against the REAL pros. If I thought I were really this good, I'd have no problem shelling out ten grand to play in next year's Main Event.

Then there are their lines. If I hear Scotty Nguyen say, "You trying to push me out just because I'm short-stacked, baby?" one more time, I think I'll scream. Other players have equally repetitive lines.

BTW, if you can't see your cards, hit the backspace button. Just like the picture shows.

For better hold'em play, I recommend "Stacked" if you can find it (it's pretty inexpensive these days). But this game includes all of the games included in the real WSOP, which was its main selling point as far as I was concerned.

I read some other reviews that said this game was slow on their computers. They didn't mention what kind of computer. I bought it anyway, because I am learning poker, and thought it would be a good tool.

I am impressed! It works great on my computer. 1800 Duo Processor Pentium, 2GB RAM, 256 ATI video card...running Vista...it has a rating of 3.

You can play at the speed the game is played in real life and get a very realistic experience. If you are a bad player you will lose, and you do better if you play well. If you plan on playing at a casino, this is great practice. It allows you to speed up the game, so you can play it faster than even online poker, if you want. I like the crowd noise, the real players voices, and Chad and Lon making commentary.

I haven't played it enough to say for sure the AI is good, but it seems to be very good.

You get actual random cards, and the players are programmed to play according to their real life style...very impressive.

You are going to have to fold a bunch of hands in Hold em, because that is realistic. If you want an action video game, get half life or something, but if you want to play and learn poker...get this.

Good job Activision...and thanks Phil Helmuth for advertising this product.

It will keep me busy a long time learning the game, and I won't be losing real money.

This is an updated review. This game was not playable on my laptop, even though it met system requirements. I just purchased a 2010 Dell and it works fine. It has a lot of introductory video which is flashy, but doesn't add to the gaming experience. Overall, it's fine, but make sure your PC in state of the art.

Not a good purchase. Graphics bad. Instructions on set up are terrible. Made a mistake getting this one.

Works great in Windows 2000. Phil's poker class is a must take for the serious student of Poker!