The Texas hold 'em poker craze that enveloped the mobile games industry through most of last year seems to have subsided somewhat, but there are still a few late entries popping onto the decks now and again. 6 Shooter Showdown: Poker, a new game from SpiderMonk Entertainment and Hudson, is probably the most creative entry we've seen in the genre. It would have been a better game if the developer had concentrated more on its poker mechanics and a little less on its offbeat humor--it's not even close to the best hold 'em or five-card draw poker game from a purely technical standpoint--but it has more variety and personality than most mobile games in any category. It may make you shake your head from time to time, but 6 Shooter Showdown: Poker is still a lot of fun to play.

Check yerself, varmint!

In 6 Shooter Showdown: Poker, you're the new hombre in a hard-livin', rootin'-tootin' Old West town. You've got $300 in your pocket, a mean gleam in your eye, and a selection of firearms to help you out of any friendly dispute you might get involved in at the card tables. At the beginning of the game, you can choose your character from six different archetypes: gunslinger, rifleman, bandit, marshal, soldier, and card shark. Each of these guys possesses a different level of skill with the three types of guns you'll encounter in the game--the rifle, the six-shooter, and the derringer--and this combination of weapons and skills becomes important later, when somebody is accused of cheating at the table.

After you've got this all squared away, you'll hit the dusty streets to start working your way through the town's gambling venues. To unlock the next saloon or casino and move up the food chain, you need to earn a certain amount of cash playing either Texas hold 'em or five-card draw poker in each joint. All of the card action takes place from a first-person perspective, where you can watch your unsavory gambling partners fidget with their cards and make bad quips about their hands. The game's version of Texas hold 'em isn't likely to satisfy ardent players. For one thing, it appears to have been simplified: The game uses a strange blind structure, and there aren't any side pots. Plus, you're playing some weird kind of no-limit game with a betting cap, and there's no way to customize it. Finally, the game's hold 'em AI simply isn't very good. We've noticed that the CPU players will often stick it out to the very end while holding garbage, resulting in some quick, enormous wins. The AI appears to get more difficult as you advance, but it's never really a challenge for experienced poker players. The five-card draw game fares a little better. If you're past the first casino, you can choose to play straight up, with a wild card, or low spade on your deal, and the computer's play feels more astute, too. Unfortunately, there's no multiplayer mode, pass-and-play or otherwise.

Luckily, 6 Shooter Showdown: Poker doesn't rely solely on these games of poker to keep your attention. The cheating and gunfighting aspects are well-designed additions to the gameplay, and they definitely make things more unpredictable. When you're playing in a lawless venue like a saloon, a little card icon will pop up if you have an opportunity to cheat; the jack move could consist of making an "informed choice" off the top five cards of the deck on your deal or surreptitiously moving an ace around at the end of a five-card draw game. Your opponents, of course, can pull the same skulduggery--and they will. You can accuse the winner of any hand of cheating, and a little standoff will ensue. If you win, you'll get the cheater's winnings, but if you lose, you'll pay a price. Pulling your strap on an innocent man is frowned upon, so you'll still have to fight, but you won't be able to win any money. The gunfight itself is managed via a rock-paper-scissors game with the three types of weapons: rifle overwhelms six-shooter, derringer out-quicks rifle, and so forth. You and your opponent each have three hearts, which get depleted according to which weapon the shooter hits with and how skillful he is with it. Since cheating is a large part of the game, you'll have to keep an eye on your life gauge and decide whether taking a risk on a gunfight is worth the potential cost. All of this adds a neat wrinkle to the otherwise standard poker gameplay.

Cheating in poker is both fun and lucrative.

6 Shooter Showdown: Poker's other main strength lies in its excellent, if somewhat quirky, presentation. The six types of characters are very nicely animated on the LG VX8000. They'll move their eyes, shift their hands, and scowl at you like characters in a lame Western. Their characterization is uniformly great. Card sharks, for instance, sport a monocle, top hat, and ratlike countenance, while bandits dress in black and wear an eyepatch. It's odd to see your opponents hold up a five-card hand while playing Texas hold 'em, but this is a forgivable offense, given the quality of the graphics. The poker interface is very good as well--we especially appreciate the way you can realistically flick chips onto the table. The sound effects are understated but adequate enough to get the point across, especially during gunfights.

Even if its poker games have some holes in them, 6 Shooter Showdown: Poker still has a fair amount going for it. How many other poker games can boast multiple poker variants, a wild setting and presentation, and a halfway decent cheating system? If you're looking for a serious Texas hold 'em game, this isn't the download for you, but poker players looking for a laugh and casual gamers had better start working on their draw.