Mad River Poker Club Reviews
Patience is key in poker, whether waiting for the right cards to come your way or grinding out hands to outlast impatient competitors. Ripstone Games’ latest release Poker Club asks gamers to practice just this virtue.
This game’s 3D player avatars can be explored freely in their 3D environment – making for an interesting change from standard poker sim views – but this innovation slows down gameplay significantly.
Gameplay
After some initial difficulties, Poker Club has matured into a reliable yet unremarkable poker simulator. It uses the standard online Texas Hold’em game structure and plays at a more realistic pace compared to what’s offered online; which can potentially slow the pace of play down significantly. This could either be seen as an advantage or disadvantage depending on personal taste and needs.
Ripstone has made some innovative user interface design choices with their game, which provide player names, levels, and chip totals as you look around the table. Unfortunately, however, their elegant presentation of information is marred by some incomprehensible options in their menu’s.
3D player avatars can be customized from head to toe using cosmetic items earned through winning hands, but all share similar physical traits; that is, their athletic build features razor-sharp cheek bones and strong jaw lines.
Tournaments
Poker Club from Ripstone Games has been experiencing server issues since its release, which have resulted in frustrating lag during play. Once these have been addressed, gameplay becomes smooth and enjoyable; patience is required in this game for success; whether grinding out hands or waiting for suitable cards to play; while patience is an essential skill needed by any serious poker player it can be especially hard when dealing with impatient opponents.
Mad River does host some tournaments each week. Their website lists their schedule. Typically, prizes for these events include either a seat at the final table or cash. Unfortunately, qualifying for large tournaments can often prove challenging.
Cash Games
As this game relies on keeping patience at its forefront, matches may drag out for quite some time while waiting for cards or dealing with AI opponents. Partly due to an anti-cheat mechanism which holds all cards until needed, matches may drag on for hours at a time.
Patient is required for optimal gameplay when it comes to the user interface (UI). Although it provides useful information during gameplay (player names, levels, chip totals and bet status are all shown on screen), its navigation through menus may be cumbersome at times.
Overall, Poker Club is an ambitious yet functional poker simulator. Although not quite ready to take on the top tiers in its genre, it shows great promise. While the launch issues were addressed satisfactorily, certain innovations that aim for greater immersion have made play too slow and may become tedious over time.