MotionX Poker Quest

Anything that makes poker a little easier to play is a good thing in my book. I've never been able to get my head around a game where you can actually win with a bad set of cards.

I have plenty of friends who supplement their wages by chipping in relatively small amounts of money in online poker contests. They're brave souls.

I, however, feel much safer when the money I'm betting isn't real and when I don't have to remember all the hands I could possibly win or lose with. MotionX Poker Quest is my perfect home then.

No cards, just dice in this ancient Egyptian-themed adventure that guides you through the poker process. Pitted against an Egyptian deity, your aim is to roll the best combination of five dice in three attempts.

After each throw, you can choose which dice to hold by tapping them. The remain dice require a shake of the handset to throw again; alternately, if you're boring, lazy, or both, you can use the handy on-screen button to throw them.

Poker Quest then determines the winner, awarding the associated points to the triumphant party. Matches against the first god cost 20 points to play, with the amount of points needed per match rising with each level.

Your ultimate goal is to win enough points to unlock the next god on the ladder in order to slowly climb the ranks. Each game naturally only lasts a minute or so, but that only makes having another go - even if you're on a tremendous losing streak - extremely tempting.

In truth, you don't even have a choice. Continued success relies on you playing for a long, long time, taking on each god in hundreds of rounds before you can move on.

While that first deity only demands 20 points, each new step along the way comes with surprisingly large buy-ins.

You can easily find yourself getting lost in play, devoting minute after minute to upping your total score, taking the mistakes and the downright unlucky losses on the chin and endlessly having just one more go.

Everything from the menu screens to the actual boards scream quality. Small touches like the light reflecting off the sandy stonework that flashes up between each level and the realistic way dice bounce add visual flair to title already winning with its gameplay.

So impressive are the physics, in fact, that if you're ever looking to show off your swanky new tech to a friend, give Poker Quest a good shake and watch their reaction as those dice hurl themselves around inside your iPhone.

There's good replay value, too. Trophies are awarded for certain milestones and you can unlock different kinds of dice the further you move up the ladder.

Even a plain old winning hand might not be enough for you - you may want to strive for the bonus points on offer, awarded for winning with just one roll or a continued run of success.

It's worth going for, too, as its possible to win sixteen times your bet. You may not be winning money like you would in a game of poker online but it is very satisfying to rank up your points and watch them grow.

But it's the addictive shake and tap, shake and tap that keeps you betting. You'll love every minute of it, even when you're losing.

Whether you never get beyond the opening gambit or if make it all the way through to meet Amun-Ra, MotionX Poker Quest is a bastion of how simple can become sophisticated.