Donkey to Pro Blog

• Publisher: Mumbo Jumbo
• Developer: Funkitron
• MSRB: Teen
• Features: 4 Game Modes, 12 Poker Superstars
• Price: $19.99

While “Poker Superstars III: Gold Chip Challenge” isn’t a bad poker game, there are a few too many problems for me to recommend it. The “season play” mode is fun but A.I. problems make the game too frustrating to enjoy for an extended length of time.

“Poker Superstars III” comes with four modes of gameplay. The biggest of the four is obviously “season play” where you play in a series of qualifying tournaments and win points based on how you finish. If you are good enough, you might just make the finals. The other three modes are challenges (where you play poker in different ways, almost like minigames), single round (a quick, one-round game), and limit play (aka limit poker where there are limits to how much you can bet in each round). I personally thought the challenges were pointless and I barely played the single round or limit play modes at all.

The biggest problem with the game is that the computer players are even more stupid than the donks you see in online poker rooms. They are perfectly willing to go all-in with queen/ten but won’t bet or raise when they have a pair of aces, three of a kind, or even a full house. They’ll almost always match your all-ins, even if they have 10/7 off-suit. Considering that the opponents you are playing are supposed to be poker pros (Jennifer Tilly and Eli Elezra are amongst the 12 superstars in the game), its a bit disappointing that they play like donks.

The other major problem is that the look of the game is a bit on the confusing side. For some reason, the amount you would have to bet is automatically taken out of your chips. It is also rather hard to bet the amount you want. Instead of simply typing in what you want to bet, you have to click on your chips to build the bet you want. The game also moves very slowly and had me reaching for the skip button on every hand I didn’t play.

The best part of the game is definitely the season mode though it would have been much better if the computer players actually knew what they were doing. It’s still reasonably fun and definitely the major reason to pick up the game. I wouldn’t recommend “Poker Superstars III” but if you want a cheap poker game with a season mode, it isn’t the worst choice out there.

Play Online Poker