Poker Smash, a match-3/deck of cards mashup from Void Star Creations, is now available from the app store. Previously available as an Xbox Live game, Poker Smash has made a smooth transition to the iDevice, easily adapting to the touch interface to offer an exciting experience for puzzle fans.
Poker Smash Pros:
- Exciting gameplay
- Nice graphics
- OpenFeint
- Multiple game modes
- Simple controls
Poker Smash Cons:
- Controls a big laggy
- Card colors mask suits
- Scoring not clear
The concept is simple and familiar if you’ve played match-3 games before. Rows of cards between 10 and Ace stream slowly up from the bottom of the screen. Your task is to score points by matching 3 cards of the same value horizontally or vertically. Cards can be dragged and rearranged horizontally only. Matches cause cards to disappear, resulting in any cards above falling down to fill in the gaps. The poker aspect comes in to play when you have a series of cards that form poker hands, such as straights, full houses, and 4- and 5-of-a-kind. These special hands gain big points, while chaining matches together initiates multipliers that can really boost your point total.
There are two game modes included: Action and Timed. Action will slowly increase the speed of the streaming cards, as well as offer challenges to try to meet, such as 3 pink cards, 5 diamonds, one card of each color, etc. These challenges are only valid for a very short time. The game ends when the cards stream too far above the screen. By swiping down or up on the screen, you can momentarily slow down or speed up the stream of cards, which is very useful for taking those extra seconds to avoid a game-ending miscue or for creating multiplier chains by making more cards active at the same time. Timed mode gives you 3 minutes to score as many points as possible, while still offering the challenges and gameplay elements available in Action mode.
Graphically, the game has a vibrant feel, with bright colors and fireworks displays for especially good matches. It creates a very festive feel. All relevant info (score, level, timer, bombs left, slo-mo bar, etc.) is tucked neatly around the perimeter, allowing the gameplay to take center stage. The soundtrack is an upbeat, looping track that kept our heads bobbing and toes tapping. It helped to enhance the excitement of the game without becoming obtrusive or annoying. If you wish, you can listen to your own music by starting a song before launching the game, too. An announcer’s voice notifies you of new challenges, which are represented visually along the left side of the screen, and sound effects accompany matches. The controls worked pretty well. Swiping was effective, with the slowdown effect offering additional visual cues that the speed had indeed changed. Dragging cards was simple, though we were disappointed that we couldn’t move a card through a recently-created match. We could continue to rearrange cards while waiting for matches to disappear, as long as we didn’t need to drag a card through the match itself. This caused us to get stuck on multiple occasions until they disappeared, as it wasn’t always possible to work around them. It was a bit annoying, but it did offer an additional challenge. Another gaming element that we forgot about during our first few playthroughs is the bombs. Double-tapping a card will cause it to explode, freeing up a space that could be used to disrupt a logjam of cards. You get 5 bombs, which replenish themselves by clearing cards. These were very helpful when played strategically.
There were a few items that we felt could use some tweaking. While a hands-on tutorial is included, it wasn’t very clear how the scoring took place, for instance. The pastel colors of the cards made it difficult to pick out the suits at a glance, so any challenges involving suits were often unmet. There also seemed to be a delay in card movement. If we dragged our finger on a card at the right side of the screen over to the left and released, the card wasn’t always where our finger was, but often a space or two behind. This was frustrating, as it forced us to consciously slow down when our instincts were telling us to speed up. Otherwise, the game was pretty solid.
OpenFeint integration improves the replay value of Poker Smash, allowing you to compare your efforts to other players. An achievement system with 17 awards also provides incentive to continue playing. Stats are maintained for you last game, best game, and career for both modes, which is a fun bonus to evaluate your successes. In all, Poker Smash is a solid 4.5-Dimple challenge for only $1.99.
