You know what your mobile phone needs? Yet another poker game.
Okay, that last statement isn't entirely accurate. In truth, your phone needs another poker game like it needs dropping in the bath, being hit by a large mallet and then popping into a microwave for 20 minutes. (Don't try that at home, kids.)
Ah, but this is
The Sopranos Poker. You'll get the chance to hunch over a dimly lit table with Tony, Paulie and Silvio, swapping wisecracks and chips, while all the time wondering if you'll make it out of the room alive.
It sounds a decent enough concept, and such characters could bring a bit of much-needed diversity to the poker market. But unfortunately this game has wasted the opportunity.
Instead of attempting to distil some of the savagely dark humour of the TV show, it appears that THQ Wireless has just taken a painfully dull poker game and bolted on the
Sopranos licence in order for it to sell. Perish the thought.
There's not even a huge range of variations on offer in
The Sopranos Poker. It starts with Five Card Draw and ends with Texas Hold 'Em, and that's your lot.
Play the traditional five-card game and there's initially a glimmer of interest when you realise that you're on a table with the three wiseguys, but apart from the (very) odd wisecrack, there's no real difference between sitting with these hoods or the Bee Gees.
Select the Texas Hold 'Em game and things improve slightly, as you're up against three Bada Bing 'dancers'. The gameplay is a bit faster, and the wisecracks are a bit funnier, but like we said, it's only a slight improvement.
In both games, there's no real sense that you're playing against moneyed criminals who know the rules of poker. Bluffing is rare and they all seem to dump their cards at the first possible opportunity, so there's very little chance that you'll end up in a potentially lethal four-way bluff-off, with a stack of chips on the table and a nervous eye flickering to the exit door.
The audio effects and soundtrack offer little to raise the interest level, but this is a poker game on a mobile phone, so we can probably forgive it for that. You get a weak tune and a sharp crack when the cards are dealt out, and although we would've been enormously impressed with the odd Tony Soprano sample, we also realise that it's probably expecting a lot.
You do get the option to cheat though, which is a nice touch, although the penalty for getting caught is nowhere near as extreme as we'd imagine. Rather than being roughly locked into the back of a car and taken for a drive into the country, you lose half your money. Get caught a second time and you're out of the game. And that's it.
When all's said and done,
The Sopranos Poker is an average poker game that's slim on options and game modes, with a popular licence slapped on top to sell it to the masses. There are plenty of better options out there to choose from, such as
World Series of Poker: Texas Hold'em and
World Poker Tour: 7 Card Stud.
The Sopranos Poker may have the name, but regrettably it has none of the charm.
