TL;DR
Step into the exclusive underground club of The Inventory with the remastered release of Poker Night at the Inventory. Facing off against gaming icons like The Heavy and Max in high-stakes Texas Hold’em, this 2010 classic finds a perfect new home on the Switch 2 with a silky-smooth 60 FPS. The real draw is the sharp, witty character banter that stays fresh for hours, making every hand feel unique and hilarious. Whether you’re a poker shark or just looking for some portable laughs, this quirky title offers incredible value for less than the price of lunch. With performance breakdowns across platforms and a look at the game's biting humor, there’s plenty more to discover about this star-studded card game. Read the full article to see if you have what it takes to beat these legends!
In Poker Night at the Inventory, you play Texas Hold’em against four iconic characters. You are invited to the exclusive and underground club The Inventory, where you get to meet Max from the Sam & Max game series, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, and Tycho from Penny Arcade. Now, the game from 2010 can be enjoyed on Switch 2 in a remastered version.
My experiences with Texas Hold’em
The first time I played Texas Hold’em was at a midsummer party in the early 2000s, and to this day, I still think it’s the most enjoyable form of poker. It’s also always just as fun to slide into a saloon in Red Dead Redemption and play a little poker between adventures. I completely missed Poker Night at the Inventory when it was released in 2010, so when it appeared now, I initially thought it was a brand new game.
Characters and humor
It isn’t—and that is perhaps why the four characters in the game feel a bit odd. I was familiar with three of them beforehand, but I had no idea who the character Strong Bad from Homestar Runner was. Regardless, it was time to get started; the game’s structure is very simple. There are no issues at all getting into it.
The opponents you play against are truly “in character,” and the humor is sometimes quite harsh. What I found especially fun was that it took over an hour before the first dialogue was repeated. After that, new variations and setups still continue to appear. This makes the game feel very well-made and significantly larger than you might first think.
Dialogues and attitude
There is also a lot of bickering between the characters, and they can be really mean to you if they think you are playing poorly. Don’t be a sore loser, or the Switch might risk flying across the room.
Performance on Switch
I tested the game on Switch 2, where the frame rate stays at a steady 60 FPS. There are no problems playing on the built-in screen, which makes this a perfect Switch game to bring along on a trip or when you want to kill some time.
If you run the game on the original Switch, the frame rate drops to 30 FPS, but since this isn’t an action game, it doesn’t significantly affect the gaming experience.
The PC version
The game is also available for PC, and that version is clearly the strongest with native 4K support and ultrawide mode. At the same time, this is not a game that requires perfect graphics to work well.
In summary, Poker Night at the Inventory is a fun and quirky game that offers many hours of entertainment. It definitely helps if you are a fan of one or more of the featured characters, and that you enjoy this particular type of poker. The game costs less than a lunch and is perfect to take with you on a trip, so I would like to recommend it—even if poker might not be for every player.
Skunkape Games sent a review code for this test. Senders of material have no editorial influence on our tests.
