Social Game Reviews

There has been a recent craze and increase in the awareness of playing poker (I think it’s safe to assume it’s synonymous with Texas Hold’em) especially since the televised version of the game has made every couch loving TV addict a self professed expert on poker. What better to test your mettle than play the game online with your friends and challenge each other? Zynga Poker on Facebook gives you a chance to do just that and a little more.

There are several poker websites that allow you to play poker for free; some even allow you to download specialized software on your computer to be able to play it without logging into any other website so why would you want to play this game? The best thing (and at times worst)about playing Zynga Poker is that you can play with people you know and have a good time, especially you happen to win. There is a big annoying thing though, the game just doesn’t leave you alone and let you play peacefully almost every event in the game has the potential to show up on your wall. Clicking a couple of windows every time you win gets irritating after a few games, a wrong click and everybody knows what you are doing when you appear to be working.

Like every social game worth its salt they have you coming back every day to play by giving you chips, the currency on which this world runs. There is a lottery system that gives you random bonus chips (with a chance to win a million if you are lucky!) and there is the daily chip bonus. But there are several ways of getting chips to play, you can buy them (credit cards, PayPal you name it), you can win them by playing, by inviting friends or you can get them for different achievements in the game. They have a crazy list of achievements and require you to do equally crazy things to get them. I am just glad they don’t have one for folding pocket aces. The best part of Zynga poker is their lobby structure there are several servers and there are always people that you can play with friends or not, the game does glitch at times and at times will simply get stuck, this gets really annoying when you have a good hand and you can’t play coz the game won’t let you and kick you off the table.

Zynga has also added a bit of role-playing experience in their game, you get experience points for every hand you win, for getting good hands, achievements and even for just showing up on the table and playing. As you gain more experience you get new ranks and more winnings to play at tables with higher stakes, along with a lot of vanity items. But it’s not all about just virtual money; one of their tournaments, Shootout, gives you a chance to win one of the 10 Wii systems given out every ten days.

The games lobby interface is a bit clunky and busy, it takes some time getting used to it and knowing exactly what’s going on, there are different experience bars, numbers etc. The one thing where the interface wins is showing any of your friends online and allowing you to go to their table directly. On the other hand if you are already playing at a different table the game allows you to invite friends to join you. The game also has a ranking system shown at the bottom of the table that shows you how you fare against other buddies and keeps egging you to beat them.

Overall a nice structure added to a known game to increase the social experience and makes you keep coming again and again to play and have fun albeit with some minor annoyances. So the next time you are on Facebook go get some chips.

Related Links

Zynga Poker Homepage

Zynga Poker (On Facebook)