World Series of Poker

There's no disputing the fact that poker is cool right now. A combination of late-night cable TV shows featuring B-list celebrities, the proliferation of online poker sites promising millions to be won, and the addictive simplicity of its latest strain has ensured that casino sets are outselling all other board games. Dinner parties are now more likely to end with Texas Hold'em than Trivial Pursuit. So it should come as no surprise that a PSP version of the game has finally arrived; what is a surprise is the time it's taken to get arrive!

Taking the name of one of the world's leading poker tournaments (don't get too drawn into this though, poker has more 'world titles' than boxing), World Series of Poker casts you as a fresh-faced wannabe on the poker circuit with the dream of winning the coveted title and $10,000 to burn.

As luck would have it, there are a variety of tournaments on offer to help with the incineration and, after a little time spent customising your card sharp get-up (sunglasses and hats are de rigueur this season), you can hit the tables straight away.

Although Texas Hold'em unsurprisingly accounts for the majority of matches, there are multiple varieties of poker to chose from, allowing connoisseurs to partake in Omaha (similar to Hold'em but with four cards in your hand), Seven Card Stud (you only have your own cards, four of which are dealt face up) and Razz (in which the idea is to have the lowest hand possible!). In each case you're presented with a range of competitions varying in terms of initial stake, pot limit and, crucially, the position you need to finish in if you're going to pick up any dough.

These changes may seem pretty superficial when viewed in a list, however there's a marked difference in the approaches needed to succeed, with low stake, pot-limit games demanding patience and a more clinical approach to your hand, as players are more likely to 'call' your hand. Meanwhile, 'no-limit' match-ups (in which players can, and frequently do, raise stakes dramatically or go all-in) are a more direct test of nerve and the ability to bluff.

Unfortunately these variations in format and style aren't matched by World Series of Poker's setting. While the main table layout works well, marrying a 3D table view with a simple control setup that makes it abundantly clear who's in on the hand and what your options are, the backdrop disappointingly remains the same nondescript casino room from one of Harrah's hotels.

Your fellow gamblers hardly help matters, being roughly hewn and limited in both animation and vocabulary. Indeed, their repetitive claims that "If I had a wish I'd fish, but I'll call" or "Just like my last date – the money's gone and nothing to show for it", are only topped in the annoyance stakes by the handful of anodyne remarks repeated by distinctly odd-looking presenters and the way players over-react to winning or losing every hand, regardless of the money involved or the manner of the victory.

These issues also contribute to the lack of any feeling of progression throughout the game. While your statistical progress is recorded – you do stock up collectors' chips for achievements on the green baize (such as knocking out state champs or winning showdowns) and there are special invitational matches to test your mettle in different locales (one table with the finest players head to head) – you never really feel as though you're climbing through the ranks or working towards any achievable goal.

The real tragedy of this is that beneath the hurried-looking visuals and the limited options there's some rather convincing AI at work. Opponents have their own distinct strategies (some try to bluff every pot and you actually look forward to seeing others arrive at your table; the frequent caller Junior Moore is one of our current favourites) and there even seems to be an emotional factor at play on occasion, when a couple of closely contested pots lead to a progression of testosterone-fuelled 'all-in' bets.

What's more, there's a marked difference in ability levels, which helps to heighten the pressure as tournaments progress. This makes WSoP a viable training tool. Indeed, we'd go so far as to say that it's actually considerably more satisfying than playing against real people on free-play poker tables (including the sparsely populated wireless multiplayer mode included here) where the absence of the risk/reward process leads to some rather 'wild' play.

World Series Poker attains the number one spot in the PSP poker rankings for now, but only by virtue of existing in a field of one. It'll have to shuffle its deck considerably if it's going to stack up against the challenge of World Poker Tour and World Poker Challenge 2, both of which arrive at the end of April. World Series of Poker is on sale now.