Stacked with Daniel Negreanu Review

Wait, did you say "Crapped w/ Daniel Negreanu?"
(Xbox, PS2, PSP; $19.99-29.99; Rated T for Crude Humor/Simulated Gambling/Mild Language; stacked.mtv.com)

(one star)

I would have thought that since MTV was attempting to cash in on the Poker craze with the kids, they would have produced a game slick enough to keep the split-second attention span of its audience. Instead, I heard even the Amish think this game looks like junk.

And Brother Jebediah: you couldn’t be more right. “Stacked” is a horrible looking game, not even fit for the N64, let alone the PS2 or Xbox. Look fellas, I realize that the systems you produced this game for are lame ducks, and I realize this is a “budget title,” but that doesn’t mean it has to look and play this bad. After all, “NFL 2K5” was a $20 budget title, and it was so good it caused EA to gobble up the exclusive rights to the entire NFL. And that’s a football game! That required lots of animations required to make the game look good and feel real- all you had to do was make ten people sitting around a table look, well… not dead, and you would have nailed it!

Playing a video poker game isn’t just about getting the card system down right, but also about building an exciting atmosphere around playing cards. After all, we’re not shooting Zombie Nazis or blasting alien spaceships, we’re doing something anyone with four other friends can do- why not make the experience a little more flashy? For crying out loud, we aren’t really playing in a high-stakes poker tournament, so why be so boring in the presentation?

In theory, “Stacked’s” card system is supposed to “learn” a player’s strategy as they progress through the game, making the computer respond more appropriately as real opponents would to a rising poker star. However, considering I play poker with as much cunning as a wolf in a KFC, I wasn’t able to determine whether the computer ever had me pegged- I was too much of a loose cannon, and therefore beat “Stacked” at its own game.

The animations in this game are awful, the table chatter is repetitive and grating, the character design is sub par, and the excitement to play poker is at an all-time low. Yes, hopefully we will see an Xbox Live Arcade version of Texas Hold ‘Em on the 360 and other next-gen systems, but who’s palms do I have to grease to make sure it’s not this version?