A Review of Prominence Poker (PS4)

photo: Pellikan Sama on YouTube

Overall: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Story: N/A
Graphics & Sound: 7/10
Online: 8/10
Replay & On-going Value: 8/10

To Start

Prominence Poker is a Free-to-Play game available now on the Playstation Store. It’s an arcade poker simulator where you create a character and upgrade their clothing and accessories as you level up and win more money. Though you can play against AI, most of the fun with Prominence Poker comes from playing online against other players. Having only played online so far, I can’t speak for a story if there is one, other than the beginning of online where they introduce your create-a-character as the new poker player on the scene who took down a “boss.” There are in-game transactions in the form of buying chips, but like most free-to-play games with in game transactions, you don’t really need to buy currency to enjoy the game.

Gameplay

I was curious to see how the gameplay in Prominence Poker would turn out. When I used to play online poker, it was on a PC where you could enter how much you want to bet, so I was curious to see how the betting system would translate to a console game that uses a controller. I must say, they did pretty well. The controls are pretty simple, dividing your options (bet, fold, check, etc.) into a wheel. One direction gives you option A, another will give you option B, etc. So far, I’ve found the experience pretty frustration-free.

photo: Pipeworks Studio on YouTube

The way you progress is by leveling up to unlock things, and winning money in games/tournaments to buy them for your character. As for the Character Creation system, you actually have a lot of options. It’s not as in depth as a big AAA game, but it’s still pretty good. You can choose their nose, ears, eyes, jawline, hair style, body type, and later on in the game, you can deck them out with nicer clothes and accessories like sunglasses, earrings, bracelets, and rings. You can also give them side items that they’ll have with them on the table like drinks, charms, cigarettes, and more. In addition, each character has a set of emotes such as waving, chip tricks, and celebrating that unlock as you level up. Another thing I really love is that you can change anything on your character at any point. So, if you’re tired of playing as a Wall Street shark, switch to a Route 66 biker dude, or switch to an upper class Mafia wife (which is currently what I play as).

All that said, the most annoying thing about this game has been the community of online players. Because it’s a free game, a lot of people don’t play well. I know it’s poker and you can play any style you want, but what I’m talking about is people going all in pre-flop with 74 off-suit just because. And the thing is, a lot of the time they’re reward by bad-beating good hands like KK or AQ. If I had to guess, they follow a strategy of “if I go all in every hand, I’m gonna make more money than I lose.” Don’t get me wrong, there are players who actually want to play poker as well (about 50% actually), but for the most part people play wildly and you just have to hope you can catch them when you have a hand. Maybe it’s different as you play in the higher stakes games, but so far the intro stakes (10,000 & 20,000 chip buy ins) have been this way.

Graphics & Sound

The graphics in Prominence Poker run on Unreal Engine and are pretty good considering it’s not designed to center around being beautiful. The animations are pretty arcade-like, but by no means does it look like a kids game if that makes sense.

The sounds accompany the arcade theme. They’re not going to win any awards, but they do what they’re supposed to. There isn’t much dialogue (none from your character), but when you do the emotes for your character, they’ll make chatter noises similar to the way they do in the sims.

Recap

All in all, Prominence Poker is a fun arcade-style poker game. The controls are well-executed and the game itself plays great. The create-a-character is fun to tinker around with and is what sets it apart in my opinion. If you’re looking for realistic play from your opponents, you may want to look to more of a simulation type game or free mode on a betting site even, because the free-to-play tag comes with an array of players who’ll go all in with any two cards. That said, if you like poker, it’ll provide you as much as entertainment you want because every hand is different. Since it’s free, I’d say it’s definitely worth a download, but I myself wouldn’t invest any real money in it since all you can buy is in-game currency used to buy clothes and accessories for your character (if you’re decent at poker, you’ll get that in-game money anyway).