Playing Poker Night at the Inventory

Poker Night

Poker Night at the Inventory by Telltale Games has been holding my attention quite a bit lately. I know it’s not new, but I just got around to playing it this month. It’s a perfect game to be played while I’m playing World of Warcraft’s boring parts. I don’t read Penny Arcade, so I wasn’t familiar with Tycho, but Poker Night gives me a decent idea of his personality. The interactions between the four characters are entertaining, and of course, playing poker is fun too.

Sometimes at the start of a new game, one of the characters won’t have the $10,000 buy in. Instead, they’ll use collateral. If you eliminate the character that used collateral, you win the collateral. My first goal (besides just beating a tournament on normal and then on hard) was to obtain all the pieces of collateral. At the time, I didn’t realize that they were items in Team Fortress 2. In fact, I kind of despite all the collecting and crafting that’s warped the launch TF2 that I loved (and I’m not the only one), but that’s a story for a different post. I just wanted to collect them because they were something to collect.

Once that was done, I set my sights on earning all of the achievements. I currently have 16 out of 20, and I think it’s about time I drop that goal, because I’m getting bored. I’m still missing these achievements:

  • Straight Flush: Win a hand with a Straight Flush.
  • Four of a Kind: Win a hand with Four of a Kind.
  • Down to the Green: Win consecutive all-ins.
  • Three Wise Men: Win a hand when you have three of a kind comprised of three kings (of any suit).

There are two things that make me want to keep playing. First, there are still some pieces that I need from LFR in World of Warcraft. LFR is a sort of easy mode raiding. I won’t talk details of WoW here, but there is a benefit to me doing them every week, but it’s extremely boring and easy. I can tap one key on my keyboard and do quite well, and I like to play something else at the same time.

The other reason is that I haven’t learned my opponents’ tells. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if they existed. I had to check on Google to see if the characters have any. Yup, they do. I’m just bad if I haven’t noticed. I know I’m unlikely to pick up on all of them, but I’d like to figure out some on my own!

For now, I’ll keep playing a tiny bit. But then again, there’s always Poker Night 2!

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Episode 2: The Wise Monkey | iPhone/iPod, Reviews, Adventure

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Episode 2: The Wise Monkey | iPhone/iPod, Reviews, Adventure.

I put up a quick review of the second episode in the Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller series on Game Boyz. If you like thrillers, detective work, and point-and-click adventures (and can overlook some minor presentation flaws), I’d recommend this exciting series. It’s also available for PC, although I played it on the iPad.

The Wise Monkey is the second episode of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller by Phoenix Online Studios. It’s the thrilling follow up to The Hangman and jumps right into the action. The first one was incredibly engaging, and this episode is even more so. It upped the ante right away. If you’ve never played the first episode, you should read my review of it here

In addition, one of the important characters from the first episode is taken by a serial killer almost immediately. I wasn’t expecting so much action so quickly, and I definitely wasn’t expecting that to happen to a character whom I really liked…

If you’ve played the first episode, you should know what to expect. The Wise Monkey doesn’t need to get you acclimated. You know the gameplay, and you know the characters. This time you can plunge into the action, intrigue, detective work, and puzzles…