Poker Night At Teufort

Poker Night at the Inventory was a great game, wasn’t it? Well, I liked it. I never got around to winning the achievement items, because I lose concentration on a game really quickly if it isn’t Garry’s Mod these days, but it was fun. The best bit was the dialogue. The conversation the other players, in this case Max, Strong Bad, Heavy and whatshisname all chatting away, talking about their day to day lives, sometimes throwing in the odd joke or random bit of nonsense as they go along. Lovely, right?

Unfortunately, I never got around to getting the second one. While Glados being the dealer was a very nice idea, I already knew Sam, I already hated Claptrap and the other characters never really caught my attention. Plus there seemed to be less dialogue. It’s probably because I was brought up on different games, but with less genuinely funny characters there and more accidentally funny but generally serious characters there, I just wasn’t interested. Plus, nothing beats playing poker with Big Heavy and Little Heavy. I didn’t think I’d like Strong Bad, but I did.

What other game has really bloody good dialogue in it? Team Fortress 2. There is a problem though. Most of the dialogue in Team Fortress 2 is shouted at one another as everyone blows everyone else up. You can’t laugh at Demoman’s claim that they’ll glue that Pyro back together in hell because you’re too busy telling that Scout that rainbows make him cry. And you can’t hear that Heavy say there’s a sentry ahead because you’re too busy shouting that the cart isn’t moving even though you’re a cloaked, disguised Spy behind enemy lines. That’s where the videos and comics come in. You can hear even more classy, well-written dialogue there and you can appreciate it because you can watch the video again later. Point is, you just can’t appreciate that Sniper bagged the world’s fattest man or that Scots are just Englishmen in dresses or that Demoman has been shagging my wife while in-game.

So here is a really weird solution to this problem: make a poker game featuring just our TF2 mercenaries.

Think about it. It’d be hilarious, wouldn’t it? It’d be awesome, wouldn’t it?

This idea has already been done in other forms, to be fair. One of the many Garry’s Mod backgrounds on the home screen features Heavy, Scout and Spy among others playing poker with hats. SPUF regular Nethero included a scene in his Saxxy entry last year with Spy beating Soldier and Demoman at a game of poker. But there’s currently no real TF2 poker game.

But a game would be pretty cool. Especially if it costs scrap metal to play, and you can get weapons and achievements in return. But playing any sort of gambling game, heck, any sort of thing where our mercenaries aren’t killing each other, gives us a great opportunity to see a different side of these guys. A bit like the comics and videos but in a more interactive way, seeing how they react when you piss them off.

Alright, these are all pretty lame reasons and stuff, but seriously, it’d be worth considering. You have nine incredibly colourful characters, why not let them interact more? It’d be great.