If you’re a regular viewer of ESPN, you’ll have noticed the occasional airing of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), an annual poker tournament sponsored by Caesars Entertainment and held in Las Vegas. If you enjoy poker, and you think you have what it takes to go up against the best in the world, and you have an Xbox Live Gold membership, then there’s a free Xbox Live Arcade game just for you: World Series of Poker: Full House Pro.
If you’ve ever played poker at an online casino, you’ll have a very good idea of what to expect from WSOP: Full House Pro. You use your own Xbox avatar in this game to play against other players worldwide. I’m not a very good poker player myself, but this is one occasion when I’m glad my own lack of poker face gives away what I’m holding.
Technically, the game is freemium. You receive a stack of free chips every day, but if you lose the lot, you’re going to have to pony up with real money to continue playing. Of course, skillful players don’t have to worry about this, but the rest of us who want to ride for free will find the number of rounds a limitation.
Since the game is licensed, it features real casinos from around the world, as well as commentary from ESPN announcers Lon McEachern and Norman Chad. It adds that level of authenticity to the game, but it’s a pity the recorded reportoire is limited. It isn’t long before you start hearing the same dialogue over again. The developers have promised constant updates, but we’ll see if that extends to the commentary.
One of the problems I ran into early in the game is that the current number of online players is still small, so finding a decent match either took a very long time, or didn’t happen at all. When a match did occur, if my connection was flaky, I got booted from the table. The becomes a problem when you realize that getting booted due to a bad internet connection counts as ditching the game, and this, of course, affects your ranking on the leaderboard.
Poker is not really my kind of game—I prefer to kill demons than kill it on the tables—but for people who do enjoy it, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be found here. Older Xbox Live players will find that meeting up with friends online for a friendly match is a good way to stay in touch (provided your online connection stays stable).
Final Score: 7 Texas Hold’em Prawns out of 10
Detailed Information:
Developer: Pipeworks Software
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
Price: Freemium
Website: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/WSOP-Full-House-Pro/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584112b9
1 reply on “We Review: World Series of Poker: Full House Pro”
“The becomes a problem when you realize that getting booted due to a bad internet connection counts as ditching the game, and this, of course, affects your ranking on the leaderboard.”
This isn’t true. If you leave a table by any means (including lagging out) other than through the start menu you have 5 minutes to rejoin the table before you’re booted. During the 5 minutes your avatar will post blinds and check/fold every hand so you’d better try to get back fast. Rejoining the game is easy too, just reload/reenter the game and it will automatically attempt to reconnect you to the table.
If you still can’t get back in then don’t worry about your losses (due to game errors and disconnects). You can get them back by posting a refund request in the official WSOP FHP forums. Just make sure that you have basic information on the game such as the reference number, date, and time.
The support staff and forum regulars are friendly and helpful. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
https://wsopfullhousepro.com/forum/