Believe it or not, the second game I ever reviewed for this fine website was Poker Night 2, back in 2013. It was the sequel to 2010’s Poker Night at the Inventory; Telltale Games’ spiritual successor to Telltale Texas Hold ‘Em from 2005, as well as their first foray into video poker. After being unavailable for 7 years since delisting in 2019, Skunkape Games has now given Poker Night at the Inventory the same remaster treatment they’ve previously done for the trio of Sam & Max episodic Telltale games. There are no radical changes, but simply having this charming little game available again is wonderful in its own right.
The premise is simple; The Inventory is a back alley secret club where fictional characters from various different franchises hang out together, and you’ve been invited to join a friendly (or not so friendly) game of Texas hold ‘em with four such characters. Kick back, play poker, relax, and listen to the chatter between the patrons. I always preferred the quartet of characters in the original game vs. Poker Night 2, who have some great and varied chemistry together.
Representing former Telltale Games and now Skunkape themselves is Max from Sam & Max (voiced by William Kasten, who also voiced him in the Telltale games); the “hyperkinetic rabbity thing”, and crime-fighting partner-in-crime of suit-wearing dog, Sam. Next up is Strong Bad from the Homestar Runner webcomic (voiced by original actor and creator Matt Chapman); a diminutive lucha libre wrestler who loves teasing others and bragging about his own excellence. Third we have The Heavy from Valve’s Team Fortress 2 (voiced by original actor Gary Schwartz); the Russian heavy weapons specialist for the RED team who loves shooting things. Finally we have Tycho Brahe from Penny Arcade webcomic (voiced uniquely by Andrew Chaikin, as Tycho hasn’t featured in any other voiced portrayals); a geeky, sarcastic and foul-mouthed gamer who loves tabletop RPGs. Finally, Reginald van Winslow from Tales of Monkey Island acts as the emcee and announcer.
The dialogue is easily the main draw here; listening to Max tell some off-the-wall story, or how The Heavy continually refers to Strong Bad as “tiny Heavy” (much to Strong Bad’s annoyance). Tycho and Strong Bad in particular have some friction, with Strong Bad regularly insulting Tycho as being a nerd and a loser, and with Tycho issuing some kind of sarcastic remark in response. Tycho also swears pretty colourfully, and you can decide whether or not you want to bleep his more profane comments. Various lines will repeat fairly regularly (particularly when checking or folding) but the longer bits of banter are spaced fairly far apart, so it’ll be at least a few hours before anecdotes start looping.
The game still contains just Texas hold ‘em (Poker Night 2 would add Omaha, which has some slight changes compared to Texas), and thankfully the remaster has taken the opportunity to overhaul the character AI. In the original the AI would bet wildly and extremely randomly; often pushing huge bets on the very first hand, or regularly folding after being re-raised. The randomness of the AI has been toned down somewhat so they’re less likely to suddenly place insane bets, with the exception of Max, who may still make big swings (as he apparently barely understands how poker works). Indeed I think the personality of each character shines brighter thanks to the amended AI; Tycho is easily the most careful player and won’t bet unless he has a great hand, while Strong Bad loves to bluff.
Graphically the changes are fairly minor; I loaded up the original to compare and the biggest differences are in the lighting, with better shadows on all the characters, as well as a more detailed bar backdrop (Flint Paper from Sam & Max will be continually propping up the bar in the background). Tycho visually looks the most different as his character model shading has been redone, but it’s nothing major. There are currently a few sound issues, with the default sound effects too loud and almost clipping, as well as on some of compère Reginald van Winslow’s dialogue.
Team Fortress 2 players will also be pleased to learn that the special items which you can acquire by beating each of the characters are being reissued, meaning you’ll get a new opportunity to unlock Max’s luger pistol (the Lugermorph), The Heavy’s minigun The Iron Curtain, or Strong Bad’s Dangeresque, Too? shutter shades (actually belonging to Homestar Runner). There’s a random chance each round for one of the characters to wager their special item in lieu of the usual $10,000, and defeating them that tournament will unlock said item. There’s also a large array of different table and card designs which can be unlocked, most returning from the first version of the game but a few new extras too.
It seems pretty likely Poker Night 2 will also get a remaster soon unless the rights are impossible to reacquire (since that got delisted back in 2018), but I’d love for Skunkape to get an opportunity to make a Poker Night 3, and finally have a quartet of characters purely from video games. Both Poker Night at the Inventory and Poker Night 2 struggled from having characters from franchises less well known than others, and a purely game-centric offering coupled with more poker varieties could be great. In any case, for those who missed Poker Night at the Inventory the first time around, this might not be a straight flush, but it is certainly a full house.
