Nothing really stands out visually except for the XBL Vision support which maps your face to your player's avatar. All animations in the game are robotic and often times downright ugly. Facial expressions are attempted even though it's clear they're not any good, especially when the lips keep moving even though the person has stopped talking. There are plenty of options for creating your player even though it's not as deep as other create-a-players. So the overall graphical status for the game is very bland. To simply put it this game does not look next-gen at all, minus the player models.
It doesn't get any better though as the audio is crap as well. The commentators Norman Chad and Lon McEchean do an ok job as far as voice over quality is concerned, however their lines are few and often repeated. You can pick a voice for your character, although it's only used for saying things like "I fold" and "All in." The soundtrack is the same saloonish guitar solo seen in most games of this genre.
Included with the game are some very helpful poker tools that allow you to see the odd's of completing hands or winning the pot. Also included are several tutorial videos by none other than Chris "Jesus" Ferguson in which he briefly discusses many of the key components to Texas Hold 'em poker.
With a good single-player experience, better presentation, and more options when playing on Xbox Live; WSOP: Tournament of Champions is slightly better than its competitor. Keeping this in mind the game is also 4 times as expensive and is easily not worth the purchase unless you are really into the career mode. Seriously, if it's multiplayer that you're looking for then forget this game and download Texas Hold 'Em from the Marketplace.
