This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Brian Mohr.

World Championship Poker: Featuring Howard Lederer - All In is the third iteration of the World Championship Poker series. The game features plenty of card sharks to battle it out with along with some nice features and improvements, but in the end it’s still just another poker game on the market.

First and foremost, the game does feature a nice career mode that allows you to create your own player from a wide variety of unusual creation options. My personal favorite is the bag on my head. After that is over, you’ll battle through game after game of poker and work your way from a lowly apartment to a lavish one. While you do that, you’ll move up the pro circuit and finally end up on televised matches in Vegas casinos. The career mode goes much further than just playing cards as you will earn respect amongst your competition and attributes like an ability to read bluffs. Overall the career mode is pretty deep and is solid for a card title.

To go along with that, there is a nice variety of poker games featured in WCP, 18 in all including Texas hold’em, Omaha, Pineapple, five card draw, seven card draw and more. Even better than that, the game allows you to fluctuate between various game types in a poker match. If you haven’t played the various games of poker before, the game does give you some nice tips and a solid tutorial mode too. Another nice feature in the game is the inclusion of some of the world’s best poker players like Lederer, Annie Duke, Greg Raymer, Erin Ness, Marcel Luske and Paul Darden.

Aside from that, there is online play too. You’ll be able to play with up to seven online players or hook up with ones via the PSP although you may find it hard to find someone playing online. Nevertheless, there is a nice feature included here as your player will be able to take their accumulated bankroll into the online universe. There is also the ability to actually watch your competition with the EyeToy.

Finally, one nice feature in WCP is the ability to play a quicker game with turbo mode. The game really speeds up and allows you to play a lot faster and not waste nearly as much time waiting for your competition to make a move.

The real problem with All In comes from its AI. The computer in the game is dumb as a door and will hold poor or even miserable hands and continue to bet high. I found myself often betting every maximum raise and the computer follows me every step of the way when it has no hand at all. Just when I started playing the game, I quickly took a large majority of the computer’s money. Not to say it isn’t satisfying still, but it isn’t very realistic.

On top of that, the graphics in WCP are still pretty poor by today’s standards. There is a nice diversity of environments to play in including my personal favorite a dark room with glow in the dark chips. Meanwhile, the characters you play with and face are decent, but the animations and movements are terrible. They are way too jerky and hardly reactive enough. The one thing I did like in this regard though is the caricature style menus, for me it worked in the game.

Even worse of a problem than the graphics, is the audio in the game or should I say lack thereof. The music when present is bad and the voiceover in the matches seems unnecessary. I usually believe the commentary should do with the hands on the table, not to announce checks and folds. To go along with that, the voice acting is pretty bad too as it is very repetitive.

Finally and most important of all, this game is still just poker. You can easily find much cheaper games of poker on the internet and actually play with real people.

World Championship Poker: Featuring Howard Lederer - All In gets the job done if you’re a poker fan. It does feature a nice variety of games, a solid career mode and online play, but struggles in the graphics, audio and artificial intelligence which take the title down. Unless you’re a diehard poker fan, All In just doesn’t have enough to make you go out and buy it.

AI is pretty poor in the game, but there is a good tutorial mode and playing cards is well done

The characters and environments are solid and diverse, but animations and movements are poor.

The music is terrible and the voiceover work seems unnecessary. Voice acting is mediocre.

All In is one of the better poker games on the market and does what it intends to.

There is a deep career mode and a wide variety of poker on top of the online option.