Hated
Oh my gods the loading LAG in the game. Almost every round of betting had a 15 to 20 second load just for my turn to bet, raise, check, or whatever. There were so many times I thought my PS3 was just locking up but then the game and dialog would continue after what seemed like forever. This also continued when the game needed to save for whatever reason. I get that the game needs to load but does it really have to halt everything, including the dialog, to do so? Why couldn't it do all this loading in the background?
Speaking about the game's dialog, isn't this supposed to be the biggest selling point for the game? Outside of playing poker it's supposed to be the witty banter going around the table that keeps us sucked into the game. All of it is fun and witty, the first time you hear it. After about the first hour of playing I heard the same stories, anecdotes, and jokes repeated over and over to the point where I muted the game so I could just listen to my own music and talk to everyone else in my house. All of the characters in the game are known to be talkative yet they seemed to have only 5 generated scripts to read from and maybe 10 "reaction" statements.
Loved
Now even though I heard the scripted dialog what seemed like a hundred times, the first time I heard everything it was damn enjoyable. Even though I have no clue who the "Wendy" Ash kept referencing was supposed to be, everything seemed spot on for the franchises and even melded perfectly together in the conversations. I particularly enjoyed when Brock tells Ash to take the Necronomicon to Dr. Orpheus to have it "handled." This kind of melding was what made things interesting and fun.
Overall
In all honesty, I can't recommend picking this up on the PS3. The LAG and unskippable repeated dialog just made this a chore to play. I have not heard of the same issues on the other platforms, but I would have rather just played a real world game of poker with my friends. After the first hour of playing there would be the guarantee that the banter and joking would be different and not the same things repeated. Or at least you'd be able to smack your buddy if they were repeating the same joke a hundred times over.
Poker Night At The Inventory 2 was developed and published by Telltale Games on April 30th, 2013 for PS3. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.
