Poker Night 2

For now, however, Poker Night 2 puts a very different spin on the flooded poker sim scene by placing all it’s chips on character interaction and being able to listen to some hilarious smack talk with an interesting, albeit fictional group of competitors.

It's a decent poker game with characters from beloved franchises. There's really nothing more you need to know.

A great mix of characters and ample personality give Poker Night 2 some strong pull in its early stretches. The poker play works well enough to keep you trucking along to hear all of the funny tales and to experience the dialogue vignettes.

However you look at it, the so-so cardplay (you can choose Texas Hold ’Em or Omaha this time) does offer some nifty real-world prizes for winning challenges and tournaments: several unlockable heads and skins for use in Borderlands 2, plus five 360 Avatar items. It’ll take a number of hours to get them all, although while you’re working on that, you can also spend your in-game cash on custom chips, decks, and felts for use within Poker Night 2 itself.

A funny follow-up to Poker Night at the Inventory, with several guest stars from other series and some entertaining dialogues and sketches. Too bad for some technical issues and the lack of multiplayer.

As weird as it gets, Telltale returns to the card-based games to bring this unexpected sequel. It offers loads of fun and loads of unlockables, but not having multiplayer modes –and not being localized if you don't speak English– does limit the experience.

The conversations in Poker Night 2 are fun, and it fits the feeling of playing a poker game with these characters. For 800 points though, the game falls into a sort of middle ground where it’s hard to fully recommend.

Poker Night 2 offers some fun characters, extra’s and especially dialogues, but those start to repeat quickly and the lack of modes prevents you from coming back.

This is Poker Night 2's biggest problem. I was ready to mute the game after the third time being forced to watch a particular Claptrap sequence. You can't skip segments you've already seen, and some don't allow you to keep the poker game going while they play out.

Poker Night 2 is a fun game to gamers who enjoy the odd round of poker but unfortunately the title is a one-trick pony. You'll get some great laughs out of the game but this will wear thin as you progress through round after round. Thankfully it's quite affordably priced at 800 Microsoft Points and hopefully Telltale Games will continue releasing additional characters and hopefully the inclusion of multiplayer.

Poker Night 2 doesn’t have particularly deep pockets as far as original content goes, but considering its budget price you could spend your money on worse things. If you like poker and just want to fold some 2’s and 7’s there are definitely better games for you out there already.

While the writing is solid and the card playing has been notably improved over the first game, Poker Night 2 suffers from the same basic problem that plagued the original: a lack of staying power, thanks to the absence of competitive multiplayer and eventually repetitive dialogue.

Once you’ve heard all the dialogue, you won’t have much reason to come back to Poker Night 2. It features Texas Hold ‘em and Omaha varieties, but the poker isn’t polished enough to stand on its own. After you’ve unlocked everything, there isn’t any reason to come back.