Desirable because of its portability and cheap price - check your bargain bin for this one!
Players can start either in career mode or in a quick play option. Quick games are exactly that, a way to play a few hands on your lunch break. Career mode is the exact opposite, great for players who are in for the long haul. You can create your character through various categories like face shape, hair color, jewelry and accessories, among other options (think the Sims, though not as complex).
After your character is ready, you begin your journey to poker stardom. You begin in the Wild Corral casino with a decent chunk of money and can immediately start playing games like Blackjack, Video Poker, Texas Hold 'Em, and Seven Card Stud among many others. You can also enter various Texas Hold 'Em tournaments in an effort to earn the respect needed to later move on to bigger and better casinos (the Amazon, the Nebula, and the Renaissance), and bigger pots as well.
To break up the card gaming monotony, in between the various casinos are arcade halls where you can take part in two mini-games: Darts and Air Hockey. You can place bets on either, the more money, the higher the difficulty, and it's a great way to easily earn back some of the cash that you just lost in that last tournament. Maybe too easily actually, as once you get the hang of flicking your stylus in a set path, the money will roll in, eliminating some of the challenge. If only darts in the real world were as easy, we would all be set.
If you do happen to find yourself with an excessive amount of money, the game offers you stores in which to spend your dough. You can buy virtual clothes, accessories, phones, and so on. These "extras" are filler material at best, and can easily be looked past, but if you want to say you've completed everything in the game, you better get out that pocket book and bite the bullet, as they say.
As for general gameplay, most of the action will be taking place on the touch screen, with all of the player's decisions being carried out with the option of D-Pad or touch controls. Scrolling across the top screen are your opponents (along with their decisions and chip counts), ranging from an elderly grandmother to what looks to be a leader of a biker gang, with many unique characters in between. The graphics are your standard handheld fare, nothing too extraordinary but nothing to complain too much about either.
In an effort to help the players who may not be as skilled at the various games available, the title offers character actions, which repeat whether a character has flopped a top pair or is bluffing. For one, the grandfatherly player will reach for his oxygen when he is losing a round or when he is about to fold. Nine times out of ten, you could rely solely on these animations to make your way through a round, but when you do end up getting screwed over by the game, it's a thankful thing that the character animations can be turned off. While cute and witty at the beginning, they get old fast. Not to mention the fact that they consume quite a bit of time, which is at a premium in those marathon tournament sessions. Also, they sound pretty cheesy too.
Speaking of sounds, the audio department overall is pretty poor, and as such, I played with the volume completely at zero. Most of the background songs sound like elevator music on crack, and the occasional spoken phrases "Post Blinds" and "Read 'em and weep" are the only things to break it up. Trust me, you're not missing much by having the sound down. If anything, you're saving battery life, which is always a plus when tournaments (which have multiple rounds) can easily take upwards of an hour, depending on your own personal skill level.
Being able to hone your skills is the best part about World Championship Poker. That and the fact that it's portable. The graphics are average and the sounds are basically horrid, but if you can look past that, you might find some addictive gameplay piled beneath the rubble. And if you can't enjoy the game on your own, the fact that you can play with up to five friends through DS Download Play should help you out.
If you are craving some cheap poker action, this is a pretty decent place to start, just be forewarned that you could find many of the same games and thrills online in free, albeit stationary versions.
Review part of grrlgamer.com. Full review and screenshots at http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=wcpoker