The latest game to try to ride the increasingly lucrative poker bandwagon - a vehicle that's engulfing cable television channels and the Internet on its travels - World Championship Poker 2 is nonetheless a bit of an underwhelming affair. We've reviewed it once on the PC (read the review here) but now it's out on Xbox 360. Is it any better?

Clearly, how well you warm to the game is determined in some way by your liking of poker in the first place, and if you are a fan, then much is in place ready to tempt you. The game sits you - as you've probably guessed - across the table from some mighty tricky card-playing opponents, with many stars of the poker circuit lending their likenesses to the game. Furthermore, the various in-game opponents mix up their tactics, and each has traits that can help you work out whether they're bluffing or on the level.

The most logical way to play the game is to take advantage of the career mode. Here you create your player and then look to boost your ranking by winning the assorted competitions you encounter. You'll encounter over a dozen variants of poker as you make your way up, and the game's not shy about letting you enjoy your winnings either.

Yet all's not well here. Even when you've worked your way past the underwhelming graphics and the horrible tendency of the AI-controlled players to take more time than you'd reasonably expect to make their play, you're still struggling with some of the strange moves made by these opponents. It feels unfair, as it never lets you convincingly get the measure of your opposition, because chances are they'll just do something seemingly random at some point anyway. With that, the balance between skill and luck tilts and knocks the game right out of kilter.

The key problem, though, and the one that ultimately damns World Championship Poker 2, is that it never creates the feeling that anything is actually on the line. And robbed of perhaps the most vital element that's made poker so compelling online, there's little reason to play it.

Sure, there's an argument that as a tutorial or practice arena the game has its place, and that may be true to a point. But even so, it's a lot to ask even the lower-than-usual price of £30 for. On the plus side, the game does try to offer a two-tier approach to poker, with something for the dedicated fan and something for the casual player. But that can't mask a piece of software that struggles to muster reasons to recommend it.

Nothing much to see here. There is entertainment in here somewhere, but the game's mis-balanced and rarely grabs you enough to keep coming back to the table.