A Great Twist on a Classic

Chillingo have come to the table again and this time it’s the poker table as they release Poker Pals HD for iPad, their twist on the traditional card game of poker crossed with a scrabble type card game.

While, thanks to the in game tutorial, it’s not required for you to know the hands of poker,  it can certainly help with your initial understanding of the rules of the game and the tile placement that will earn you the most points.

The game is played on a 7×7 grid and you are dealt a hand of 5 tiles that represents cards from a standard deck to start with. Taking it in turns with either one of you virtual opponents or against a live competitor you take it in turns to place up to five tiles to make the best poker hands possible.

As you come to expect from a Chillingo title the game looks polished and is slick to use, while sounds are minimal yet effective. Moving the cards around the screen is easy whether it be around the board or on your tile rack.

As you place your tiles on the board the points that you will earn will be displayed on the tiles, this will enable you to decide on the best placement for your tiles to maximize your score. The key to your success will be the successful completion of multiple hands at the same time by combining multiple columns and rows of 5 cards.

While playing against the AI is fun enough the game comes into its own when you either use the pass-n-play option to play against a friend or via a random player via the Game Center integration. This online integration is so quick and simple it makes playing against real opponents a real pleasure and you can play against multiple opponents at the same time.

Thanks to the push notifications you also don’t need to be in the app at all times as while you are working in other applications or even away from your device you will be notified once it’s your turn again. Depending on your opponent games may last minutes, hours or even days.

Unfortunately, while their is Game Center integration that doesn’t extend to Leaderboards or Achievements, instead these are limited to the Crystal social gaming which also comes built into the game.

While the game is available for all iOS devices and is apparently the same on each of them it’s not universal meaning that if you want to play it on both an iPhone and an iPad you will need to purchase it twice. Poker Pals HD {$1.99} is an addictive game and one that will keep you entertained for quite a while.