Poker is a very popular game whether you are in Las Vegas or at your friend’s house. If you want some poker action for your iPhone, you are in luck today. We are going to look at a game called MotionX Poker for the iPhone. This isn’t what you might expect a poker game to be, but it is a fantastic game.

Controls
MotionX Poker is a very interesting game with fantastic controls that takes full advantage of all the iPhone has to offer. MotionX Poker doesn’t use cards as you might expect a poker game to use — it uses five dice. You can sort of think of the game play like normal poker with a wild card thrown in. That means you can get five of a kind and a straight beats a full house.

The controls are great and very easy to use. To play you shake the iPhone up, down, and side to side as the dice move around the screen. The game makes use of a physics engine so the dice react as they would in real life when they collide with each other and the sides of the iPhone. As the dice roll, the iPhone vibrates as well for more feedback.

Once the dice stop moving you touch the ones you want to hold. Players not familiar with poker hands will like that the game tells you automatically what your hand is. A small readout in the left bottom corner of the screen will tell you if you have a pair, full house, straight etc.

Gameplay
On the bottom right corner of the screen are coins that you win or lose depending on how good your hand is against the dealer. Once you have saved up coins, you can unlock new tables where you can win more money. The first table can be unlocked at 200 coins, the second at 4,000 coins and the final table at 100,000 coins.

There is also a free table that requires no coins to play and takes no coins from your account when you lose. This is a great place for new users to get the hang of the game. the highest and you can get in the game is 5 of a kind. If you get 5 of a kind, you also win a new set of dice. There are 39 different sets of dice to win during the game.

You can also win gems, which are really like trophies for completing certain tasks in the game like getting 5 of a kind with each of the 12 possible hands from ones to aces. The game also tracks your statistics and will tell you what your luckiest set of dice is and what your longest winning streak was and more. In the games settings you can turn the music, sound effects, and vibration off to save battery power.

The game can be a bit frustrating at points. I have been beaten by the dealer on several occasions when I had a very high hand. It seems that the odds of getting 5 in a row or a high straight are not that high. I once hit 5 in a row three times back-to-back.

Pros

• Good graphics
• Great controls
• Fun gameplay

Cons

• Easy to get beat by dealer even with a high hand

Verdict
MotionX Poker is a fantastic game. It’s lots of fun, has great controls and is easy to play. The game isn’t traditional poker, but the controls and gameplay make it one of the coolest games you will find for the iPhone.