PokerSmash
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Hands on with Poker Smash for iPhone
I recently had the opportunity to spend time playing Drew Card's Poker Smash game. Built for iPhone, this application offers standard matching game strategy (think "Bejeweled" or "Tetris") mixed with a bit of Poker savvy. With Poker Smash, you can eliminate cards by matching 3 of a kind, but you can also go for straights, flushes, full houses, and so forth. That adds a pleasant layer of complexity to what would otherwise be an ordinary game. As time progresses, cards move up the screen -- first slowly, and then as the game proceeds, much faster. You can slide cards left and right, but not up and down. Your goal is to create winning poker hands, allowing those cards to be eliminated from the stack. Better hands receive better special effects -- a straight or a flush produces in-game minimalist fireworks. Poker Smash is not a terribly deep game but it's an amusing one, and one that's perfect for short times when you just want to play a little when sitting in a waiting room or caught on a bus. I found that it quickly engaged my interest and that I was disappointed to hear my name called or my stop approach. Selling for just two bucks, it's a good value too. Poker Smash was originally developed for the Xbox 360 LIVE Arcade. Games that can make the leap from another platform to the iPhone tend to include strong offerings, having been worth the extra development costs needed to create the port. I enjoyed playing Poker Smash and can unreservedly recommend it as a nice little addition to your iPhone gaming arsenal.
TUAW's Daily App: Uprising
Match-3 games are pretty easy to come by, so presentation is the really the qualifier -- does it do something a little more interesting than the average block-matcher? On that level, Uprising succeeds. While the core gameplay is pretty common (you pull blocks around a board, trying to match them out in sets of three or more before they reach the top of the screen -- it's very similar to Xbox Live's great Poker Smash, if you've ever played that game), the treat is in the presentation. The blocks pause for a second as you match them, adding a little bit of extra strategy to your timing, and the simple graphics and sounds add up to make a stylish and intriguing match-3 experience. There is a bit of a hitch in the controls -- the touchscreen makes it a little confusing to see where the blocks are going, or which blocks you're moving sometimes, but the advantage is that multitouch works, so if you're careful about it, you can move more than one block at a time. That's something I've never seen in any match-3 game before, so Uprising is definitely worth the download. It's currently on sale for free as of this writing, too, so go check it out on the App Store.
This Wednesday: Poker Smash batters XBLA, Crystal Quest gets polished
Do you like the concept of poker but feel perpetually bored by the not-so-visceral aesthetics of the game? Perhaps the gambling aspect always gets you down in the mouth (and wallet). As announced last week, Void Star Creations' puzzler Poker Smash will be this Wednesday's Xbox Live Arcade title. The game will, erm, smash its way onto the network February 6 at 4:00 a.m. ET for 800 MS points ($10). Unfortunately, that $10 is not an ante, and you can't win that money back with a good play.Also coming this week is a free update to Crystal Quest that, according to the Gamerscore blog, will "add a crazy multiplier scheme to offer even higher scores."%Gallery-12912%
Poker Smash on XBLA next week
Developer Void Star Creations has confirmed that its Xbox Live Arcade title Poker Smash is coming next Wednesday, February 6. Of course, it could be a bluff, but the excitement seems legit and we doubt the team would want to give away its tell this early in the game.No word yet on price. If your loins are craving for a poker-Tetris hybrid, perhaps the soothing use of Rez HD will tide you over until next week.%Gallery-12912%[Via X3F]
