Poker Night 2 Critic Reviews

Very few games are stuffed with this much personality. If you like humorous video games at all (and especially if you like Borderlands and Portal), you really need to play this. It actually makes you feel like you’re sitting in a room and hanging out with some of gaming’s favorite stars, and that’s an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up unless you simply hate video games.

About as good as non-human poker gets.

Poker Night 2 provides a fairly standard poker game in the company of some fantastically written characters, but once the jokes start to repeat and you’ve unlocked everything you need there’s not much reason to keep playing.

The inner-character jibes and japes are tops but after a few games the unskippable hi-jinks go from funny to frustrating as repetition kicks in.

Familiarity with the game's characters is what breeds enjoyment of the game, otherwise you're probably looking at contempt.

A funny follow-up to Poker Night at the Inventory, with several guest stars from other series and some entertaining dialogues and sketches. Too bad for some technical issues and the lack of multiplayer.

However you look at it, the so-so cardplay (you can choose Texas Hold ’Em or Omaha this time) does offer some nifty real-world prizes for winning challenges and tournaments: several unlockable heads and skins for use in Borderlands 2, plus five 360 Avatar items. It’ll take a number of hours to get them all, although while you’re working on that, you can also spend your in-game cash on custom chips, decks, and felts for use within Poker Night 2 itself.

A great mix of characters and ample personality give Poker Night 2 some strong pull in its early stretches. The poker play works well enough to keep you trucking along to hear all of the funny tales and to experience the dialogue vignettes.

It's a decent poker game with characters from beloved franchises. There's really nothing more you need to know.

For now, however, Poker Night 2 puts a very different spin on the flooded poker sim scene by placing all it’s chips on character interaction and being able to listen to some hilarious smack talk with an interesting, albeit fictional group of competitors.

As weird as it gets, Telltale returns to the card-based games to bring this unexpected sequel. It offers loads of fun and loads of unlockables, but not having multiplayer modes –and not being localized if you don't speak English– does limit the experience.

The conversations in Poker Night 2 are fun, and it fits the feeling of playing a poker game with these characters. For 800 points though, the game falls into a sort of middle ground where it’s hard to fully recommend.

Poker Night 2 is a fun game to gamers who enjoy the odd round of poker but unfortunately the title is a one-trick pony. You'll get some great laughs out of the game but this will wear thin as you progress through round after round. Thankfully it's quite affordably priced at 800 Microsoft Points and hopefully Telltale Games will continue releasing additional characters and hopefully the inclusion of multiplayer.

This is Poker Night 2's biggest problem. I was ready to mute the game after the third time being forced to watch a particular Claptrap sequence. You can't skip segments you've already seen, and some don't allow you to keep the poker game going while they play out.

Poker Night 2 offers some fun characters, extra’s and especially dialogues, but those start to repeat quickly and the lack of modes prevents you from coming back.

Once you’ve heard all the dialogue, you won’t have much reason to come back to Poker Night 2. It features Texas Hold ‘em and Omaha varieties, but the poker isn’t polished enough to stand on its own. After you’ve unlocked everything, there isn’t any reason to come back.

While the writing is solid and the card playing has been notably improved over the first game, Poker Night 2 suffers from the same basic problem that plagued the original: a lack of staying power, thanks to the absence of competitive multiplayer and eventually repetitive dialogue.

Poker Night 2 doesn’t have particularly deep pockets as far as original content goes, but considering its budget price you could spend your money on worse things. If you like poker and just want to fold some 2’s and 7’s there are definitely better games for you out there already.

Now, if Telltale Games could get a few more licenses for even more popular characters, we could get a really fantastic series of games. Maybe in Poker Night 3 would see Peter Griffin from Family Guy taking on Ryu from Street Fighter in a rousing game of 7 card stud. One can dream.

Telltale Games is fresh off the success of The Walking Dead, an episodic game fueled by dynamic character arcs and the sensation of meaningful choices. Poker Night 2 has neither of these, as its repetitive character dialogue and technical miscalculations prevent either from stealing the pot. When the chips are thrown and the hands are dealt, it's best to sit this one out.