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Apparently he exists in real life. Honest guv, I tell you.

It's all very simple really. You've just lost everything you value in life (job, girl and car), and so to cheer yourself up, you decide to play a game of cards in a dingy little club against three guys - one of whom only happens to be called Montana. Now I don't know much about life on the Mean Streets, but I do know this - never ever play cards against someone who's named after a State. Or a city for that matter. So right from the start it's fairly obvious that you're not going to be playing for toothpicks, chocolate buttons, Monopoly money, Othello pieces, jelly babies, twiglets or any of the other bargaining chips normally used in your average, run of the mill, ho-hum friendly gambling game.

Now because this is America, the game you're about to lose all your money on is Poker. No fancy rules or variations, just straight five-card Draw Poker. The object being, of course, to win lots of money and prove your manliness by embarrassing the other players.

So, you're sitting at a table, staring at your opponents with your stern and expressionless poker-face "in full effect", and the cards are dealt. You think for a bit and (by using the joystick) you bet, match the bets and when the time is right, swap up to three of your cards to try and improve your hand. Then, if you're feeling lucky (punk), you bet some more. Or you can drop your hand, sit back and watch someone else lose their money. This is what all those tense bits in cowboy movies are all about.

You play your games (choose between 15, 25 or an Unlimited amount) and try to win some money. If, at the end of the set time, you lose or end up (horror of horrors) owing money, then you're taken outside and given a swift kicking, although you don't see any of this macho mano-a-mano action. Make a little cash however, and everything starts looking a bit rosier. Break the bank, shame the other players and reach the top of the high score table on the Hustler level, and a big surprise will be waiting for ya. And so, I'm not going to tell you what it is [Because he didn't win - Ed].

And, basically, that's your lot. It's a very simple poker game, using the digitised graphics and three different endings to try and add some sense of atmosphere to the proceedings, but after playing game after game after game after game, all I felt was annoyed and a little bit ticked off. You see, I played this for ages, and got absolutely nowhere, which is wrong, because I'm a bit good at poker. I know how to play, I know how fortune smiles on and off as you play and I know you've got to speculate to accumulate, and yet nothing ever went my way. While the other players betted out of their skins, played some good hands and bluffed in all the right places, absolutely nothing went right.

My best hand, after playing for several hours, was three of a kind which, on a scale from a high (rubbish) to a royal flush (incredible), is about half way along. Even with this, I only managed to gain a couple of hundred dollars. Yet, there were four of a kinds, full houses, straights and a couple of flushes all going to everyone else, with all the pretend computer players making pots of virtual cash from them. And before you start sneering, no, this isn't just me being a bad loser.

On top of this phenomenally bad luck (or was it? Or was it? Or... etc) I had to put up with gratuitous shots of women's breasts, silly farting noises and some strange chanting. Which just wasn't impressive. Maybe it's fun with some mates and bottles of ["Fruitopa" - Ed], but if you've got them, what's the point of playing this at all? I'm obviously not enough of a lad to enjoy it.

The final salt-rubbish incident, into the several wounds already inflicted by this game, was the boring speed that it all runs at. It's fair enough that the other players can take a little bit of time to think about their hands and batting and all that - it's part of the tension a good game of poker should induce. I'm just complaining about the time it take to deal cards, the tedious length of time it takes to end one game and start another, the fact that you have to change disks to load up one of the endings and, for reasons best known to someone else, the game doesn't even recognise a second disk drive to make this loading any quicker.

Listing all the things that I found depressing about the game, may make it sound worse than it actually is and, in the final reckoning, the game does what it's supposed to. But when I compare this full-price release to any of the card game compilations available from PD libraries, and this comes off worse, I can see no reasons why you should even consider giving this a go.

Uppers: Well, as a game of poker, everything is in the right place, and it works. And I suppose the graphics and speech are okay.

Downers: After playing for ages, the game seemed to favour the other players. I didn't get a decent hand. I couldn't make any money. It's too slow and the very silly laddish farting noise and digitised breasts *are not big or clever*.

If you fancy playing poker for money, but a pack of cards, some beer, order a pizza (just plain cheese and tomato for me) and get a few mates to come round. It's a much better way of spending £25 than buying this.