Thanks to the ever growing penetration of smartphones in the world, the mobile gaming market is getting more and more competitive. This might not sound great to a game developer, but to an end user, it means just one thing - games better than ever before! There isn't a dearth of Poker games in the Play Store or App Store, but Fresh Deck Poker by Idle Games is one of the most impressive and popular ones.
Once you install Fresh Deck Poker on your Android/iOS smartphone, the first thing you will notice is the gorgeous and realistic graphics used in the game - both avatars and environments. You are presented with a one-time offer of buying five million chips for $5, a deal that would be gone forever if you skip it. I'll leave it up to you whether you think this is a good deal, though I think this offer should appear once the player has played a game or two, so that he can decide whether he likes the game and the gameplay.
An option to login to Facebook is present in the app, which can allow you to continue your game from your smartphone to Facebook on your PC. Also, doing this will allow you to play with your Facebook friends and send invites to those who aren't already playing this game.
There are several different options to get yourself into a poker game - tapping the Play Now button puts you into the first available table and deducts $100 from your balance. Select Your Stakes lives up to its name and allows you to select your own stakes before jumping into a game. On the other hand, Sit N' Go option requires the table to be filled up before the game commences and once the game is over, the top three players are given huge prizes.
Once you are in a game, you have to play conventional poker, while enjoying the beautiful 3D rendered graphics of the game. I would have loved the graphics even more had the avatars been animated, but even though they are still, the graphics in this game easily blows a large majority of the Poker games out of the water. There is an option to chat with the players during the game, to queue up actions before your turn comes among others.
One thing I would have loved in the game was some tutorial for those who are new to the game of Texas Hold 'Em, like me. There is in fact help text available in the game, but is buried under Options menu and takes quite a few clicks to reach there. Making it more evident can help newbies get acquainted with the rules of the game and thus enjoy it better.
The game has a good replay value as multiplayer games can get really addictive and it uses a level system which allows players to buy avatars and hence customize their player once they get to sufficient levels. Tournaments with cash incentives are also organized at times, which should be reason enough for you to consider prepping up your Poker skills in this game. If and when you get bored with the game, you can play a few minigames too, including Slots of Fun and Fresh Scratchers.
I'm usually connected to Tata Docomo 3G which is notorious for its unstability. The heavy dependence of the game on internet connection made me frustrated at quite a few times. The developers should probably look forward to storing more of the game data on the device.
Concluding the review, Fresh Deck Poker isn't perfect, just like everything else in the world, but the game is free and the eye candy and addictive multiplayer gameplay helps the pros outweigh the cons. Add to that the fact that the game costs you nothing and you are left with no reason to not try the game unless you are not a poker fan.
