Poker Night at the Inventory (Remastered) – Review
A week ago from today the remaster of Poker Night at the Inventory was released, finally bringing the game back from the dead after 7 years. The original game was released on November 2010 by Telltale Games, but hasn't been available via official means since 2019 after they shut down, until now!
The game has been remastered by Skunkape Games, which is a studio composed of former Telltale people who previously also remastered their Sam & Max games. I'm very glad they're bringing these games back, and I am excited to see what they can retrieve and remaster in the future! (Though to be fair it's possible some titles will never be brought back due to licensing difficulties)
This is the first time that I've ever played Poker Night at the Inventory, so this is actually a completely new experience for me. The game is pretty much just standard Texas Hold 'Em poker, but you play against four characters from internet-famous media characters of the time: Max from (the aforementioned) Sam & Max, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, and Tycho from Penny Arcade.
Like I said previously, the gameplay itself is just standard Texas Hold 'Em, but what makes this game so beloved is all the banter by the four characters. They all have very distinct personalities that get amplified by the stakes of the game. All four are quite quippy but it doesn't get to a point where it's annoying for me, and occasionally they get special interactions between each other which are always very fun! Also I suspect they might all have different play styles, but I haven't been able to fully confirm it from my own playing.
I am sure I am nowhere near seeing all of the interactions, especially as I've only had a handful of hours of gameplay, but probably my favourite I've come across myself is Strong Bad's "Banang", as when I got it he ended up folding just as he said the final "nang" which I found extremely hilarious. But also this specific line from Tycho is so me.
The game has achievements of course, which you know I love, but it has unlockables as well! The more games you win you gradually unlock new looks for the deck and for the table, though I have only unlocked one additional table so far unfortunately. I have taken a look at some of those unlockables and I am a very big fan of the Poker Night deck, and the Control Point and On The Precipice tables. Though I will say I am a really big fan of the standard deck, and I'd absolutely love to get or make a physical set of it.
Shoutout to Stephen Whetstine for designing most of these, as I found while looking them up. There's also a deck made by Grickle which is really cute.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I am not the best at poker, and so I am not the best at this game (I've stayed in Normal difficulty). Because of that I definitely haven't unlocked as much stuff as I'd like to, including any of the special items the characters sometimes bring as collateral, but that definitely hasn't stopped me from enjoying the game!
The whole thing is still extremely fun. It's a tried and tested game that's already enjoyable on its own, but with all the unlockables and amazing cast it's a game that I've absolutely adored, can definitely recommend, and that I will probably end up playing until I've done and seen literally everything there is.
There's two more things I want to share here about this game outside of the actual review.
Firstly, this game has made me really confront my bad habit of taking too many screenshots. It's something I've tried working on, but unfortunately due to how quippy and funny this game is I struggled mightily with it at first (and admittedly still do sometimes). To try and remedy it I started to screen record some of the sessions, which has actually helped quite a bit. I uploaded my first three-ish games to my YouTube channel just to keep that archived.
And secondly, this video is very funny, please watch it.
