World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions is one of the three games that I actually worked on during my brief stint in the video game industry. So, it almost goes without saying that I spent a lot of time with it. A LOT of time.
This game is a video version of poker’s poster child: Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s got other modes, too: Omaha, Razz, Seven Card Stud, and HORSE. Don’t know how to play poker? No problem! There are several tutorial videos that will take you through the basics, hosted by Chris Ferguson (and encoded by yours truly).
Since I did some work on this game, I won’t comment on whether or not I thought the game was good or not, but I will point out a few things that I thought were pretty neat:
- Not only can you play the XBox 360 version on Live, but it’s compatible with the Vision Camera, enabling you to actually see what your opponents are doing, and most interestingly, put your own face on your avatar. With a little creativity and patience, you can end up with results like this:
One of my jobs was to try and break the face creator. This face, however, I made in the completed version of the game. There are a few more ways to make… nonstandard faces in this game, but I can’t divulge all the secrets, can I?
- The PS2 and PSP versions of this game are interoperable. You can unlock pros in one game and then transfer them to the other game. Almost like Activision’s version of Pokémon, we’ll call it PokérMon. Heck, you can even play online with your PSP against folks on their PS2s. Swank.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to go into any kind of scandals that went down while we were making this game, mostly because there weren’t any. It was a fairly typical as far as development goes, so far as I know.
If you like your poker to be in video game form and fully licensed, then this might be the game for you. Or if you feel the need to purchase something with my name on it, then this also might be the game for you. But then again, I might be a bit biased.