The greatest Italian poker player in World Series of Poker history, Max Pescatori, is a lead consultant for Prominence Poker, a new multiplayer role playing poker game recently launched on Steam, Xbox and soon to be PS4.
Having worked on the live tournament scene for many years, I know how important it is for the likes of Luke Schwartz, Phil Laak, Tony G, Mike Matusow, or Daniel Cates to make the final table of a poker game broadcast on TV or the Internet.
The cards and the chips don’t bring the game to life.
It’s the characters.
The Global Poker League (GPL) is a great concept. It’s polished poker. But it didn’t hit the vein until Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates started talking to himself like some maniacal overlord during his match against Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier.
He was and continues to be the main draw for the GPL because he is such an absorbing character.
The team at 505 Games and Pipeworks has taken this understanding to a whole new level with the creation of Prominence Poker. The team has fused poker with storytelling and character to show the game in a way that a video game has never done before.
Prominence Poker is a multiplayer poker role playing game (RPG) drawing its influences from movies such as Casino, Oceans 11 and Snatch. Set in the fictional town of Prominence, which is said to be a gambling utopia created by criminal masterminds (sounds a lot like Vegas), you get the opportunity to compete in single or multi-player mode, taking on four different factions in a series of poker games that contain end bosses.
Players get to create their 3D avatar, in true PKR fashion and get the opportunity to purchase in-play gear that’s not available in free mode. It’s a great way of opening up sponsorship angles such as Monster headphones or Hublot watches.
With the character development taken care of, what about the poker?
505 Games and Pipeworks sought the help of the four-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Max Pescatori, and he did his best to create a real life poker AI system by axing full ring games, introducing six-max action, and tweaking AI so a character that looked like BrickTop played like BrickTop.
The team has called Prominence Poker a ‘unique and unparalleled poker game experience.’
It’s a good thing for poker.
Who knows how many of the video game console community will enjoy the poker so much they may well try the real money game in the future?
The game is currently available via Early Access on Steam, and a free-to-play version recently launched on Xbox. PlayStation 4 will follow on August 23.
