Texas Hold 'em -- All In.

The much promised Texas Hold 'em finally makes it's long awaited debut on Xbox Live Arcade. For forty-eight hours players can download the title for free. After that it becomes eight-hundred Microsoft Points, or ten dollars. The story behind that is when Microsoft originally announced the title they announced that it would be free. How they were originally going to cover the cost of the game was to use in-game advertising from some Las Vegas casinos. So you'd be sitting there playing the game and somewhere on screen there would be something to the effect of "Come stay at Caesar's Palace for $89 a night breakfast included" or some such thing. Apparently Microsoft went through some legal hell with whichever casino it was supposed to be and a deal couldn't be reached. So they abandoned the idea of giving the game away for free. But they remembered that they announced the game as free. So they came up with this little free for forty-eight hours plan. It's the best of both worlds. They get to say that they kept their promise and released the game for free and they get to eventually cover the cost and profit from selling the game at ten dollars a pop. Future players will likely never even know of it once being free. Keldroc, Magus, Riddel and I all downloaded and played the game last night.  Much like Uno, Texas Hold 'em is an ideal game for Xbox Live Arcade. It offers up the same sort of highly functional graphic style. The simple and clean interface keeps things fast and easy to use. It's right to the point without and unnecessary crap tacked on. It keeps things flowing. And Poker is Poker, with Texas Hold 'em being one of the best variants on the classic game. The game does have one advantage over Uno in that it properly allows for eight player games. The game offers offline and online play. Both public and private tables. The designers have smartly tied your bankroll to your Gamercard. Meaning you're able to see any given person's bankroll. You're able to see if they are wealthy or in serious debt. In public online games the tables have minimum bankroll requirements. This enables serious players to play with other serious players and avoid the people more likely to go all in on a pair of twos. So if you go below the minimum bankroll for a particular table, you're kicked from that table and have to go down to the free play tables and earn your way back up by building your bankroll back from there. The free tables ensure that there is always a game there for people who aren't always that serious about the game. It's a very smart design decision. The offline game offers up the standard modes and a very cool scenario mode. Where you'll play through classic and famous situations. And of course there are the two-hundred Gamerpoints and achievements to unlock. The game offers a good mix of achievements between the casual and dedicated Poker types. All in all, Texas Hold 'em is another very well made and welcome card game to Xbox Live Arcade. I'm impressed with the title and I've giving it a 9. It should be said that I lost the $100 buy in for the table last night, but I made it last the night. Riddel came away from the table with like $1,300. Although she did have to buy back in a few times. So she's probably closer to $600 up. Magus was the first one to have to buy back in after being taken out by Riddel, but you know, he's just learning...