An honest and solid, if not spectacular effort in the all too familiar genre of casino gaming. NBC Heads Up Poker is a good game for intermediate to medium poker players who like to play the tournament style poker games, but don’t want to throw their hard earned money way.

The graphics are fair, although there is not a great deal of detail in the movements and animation (not that there really is in poker tournaments anyway). There is not much else offered in terms of music and special effects, and these are not really expected in a professional tournament style poker game anyway. The computer AI are quite good, and it would take a very shrewd or seasoned player to advance to the later stages of the tournament on the higher difficulty level (EASY, NORMAL and HARD). Unfortunately, having only one mode game play makes the game only suitable for those who are interested in tournament style poker, making the replayability of this game rather low.

The controls are reasonably well set out, but perhaps a little bit scattered and small considering the sparse screen space. For a mouse-oriented game, perhaps the control for adjusting the betting could be better optimized to give the players more control over the amount they want to bet. Otherwise, the layout and format of the controls are fairly intuitive and simple to navigate.

In summary, NBC Heads Up Poker is tournament style poker, but lacking in the tournament atmosphere and feel. Perhaps there should have been something extra to up the excitement ante a little bit more. But there are serious poker players, and there are casual poker players, and NBC Heads Up Poker will provide a decent test for those aspiring tournament poker players.

NBC Heads-Up Poker - download game page

NBC Heads-Up Poker screenshots (Click to see bigger image)