Stacked with Daniel Negreanu Review (PS2)

[Steve_OS]

We have just posted our review of Stacked with Daniel Negreanu. Find out what Clay Shaver had to say about it.

"When I was growing up, there was always that house in the neighborhood that had “the monthly game.” One Saturday a month, cars would line the street in front on my block and guys with silk shirts and fat cigars would spill out with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a pocket full of money.

My friends and I would inevitably try to sneak over at some point in the night to try to steal a peek through the basement window. We’d catch a glimpse of the big green table with stacks of cash and brightly colored chips at every seat in the smoky room. No music. No light conversation. It wasn’t a party. These men were there to win. It was dark and almost a little seedy. That was poker through the eyes of an impressionable Elementary School kid."

[Ec5]

Virtually every review of Stacked mentions the cumbersome betting interface.The game manual also incorrectly states that the square and circle buttons are for aggressive or tentative actions.What the heck does that mean?They both just do the same thing as the X button(except can't speed the game up).C'mon guys,now you're just making stuff up,right?Maybe if I press the SELECT button on my PS2 I can call Daniel's cell phone."Hi,Danny boy,how's the poker coming along?Great.Sure,I'd love to meet Evelyn Ng.Pool party tonight at your place...no problem,see ya".
Ok,time to get serious.After fooling around with all the PS2 buttons,I found that all I had to do to make the betting as easy as all the other poker games was to simply just use the LEFT JOYSTICK(move up and down-as usual) and not the awful directional pad.I know in the manual it says that you can also use the Left Joystick for betting(on the next page,separate from the d-pad description) but how many people will think that it's so much more precise than the d-pad?Zero,according to Stacked's early reviews.I just stumbled across this while trying to make a $3000 bet(in a career cash game)from my $112,000 stack.With the d-pad it would jump from $200 to $6400 if I held it too long.Tapping it took forever and using the L2 or R2 buttons for quick jumps didn't help enough either,so in desperation I tried the Left Joystick and was shocked how simple it was to bet any amount this way.If only I had discovered that 10 hours ago.One other minor control issue.If you want to hear Daniel's advice(sometime's right,though mostly silly or too conservative for this timid game)it's best to let the annoying sliding menu close by itself(takes about 5 seconds)instead of using the d-pad to close it.This way the next time you open the menu,it will already be lined up at Daniel's advice and you can press X right away to hear it;instead of using the d-pad and moving it two slots over.
Also,if you want to see roughly how much you have to bet to get the poki-bots to fold,let's say bottom or top pair on the river(it usually takes a touch more than half their stacks to do it),you just have to save the game at the spot you want to test and then just keep re-loading your saved game and making different bets.They won't always respond the same way,even if you bet the exact same amount(the World Poker Tour A.I. also varied it's responses,when I also tested it,by reloading saves)but it will give you an idea how tough or agressive each poki-bot is.I got mine to lay down bottom pair on the river for just over half her stack,otherwise,she would either call,re-raise various amounts or even reraise all-in,since I was showing weakness earlier.
By the way,I don't like the way the bots are allowed to MUCK(not show their cards) their losing hands,even if I called them.Sometimes,they will show you their losing hands but only because the tricky rules of poker etiquette require them to do so.You can choose to show your losing called hands if you selected this option from the settings menu,else your cards will be mucked as well.I've so far unlocked a 90 player tournament(which takes longer to win than a 2000+ player World Series of Poker Tournament-PS2) and I'm hoping there are ones with maybe more players.
After about 40 hours of playing,I'll give Stacked 7/10 overall.