Fundamentally, Poker Smash is yet another color-matching puzzle game that has become all too common in the current landscape of casual puzzle games. However, Poker Smash takes this idea a step further by also including card suits on each block. It's a small twist, but it adds an amazing amount of depth to an otherwise overdone concept.

Poker Smash does a great job at building atmosphere. Beginning in a casino, the game takes you through a number of exotic environments, ranging from a saloon in the old west to a rock concert to a pixilated throwback mirroring old NES games. Each level also comes with appropriate theme music, complete with a rock tune that seems to lament the evils of gambling (or the game's addictive qualities... these things are all about interpretation, right?). Both the visual and audio changes, which flow from one to another seamlessly, help give the game a rewarding sense of progression similar to another XBLA puzzle game, Lumines (only without the trippy, Rave feel).

Poker Smash shares more in common with the DS's Planet Puzzle League than it does other color-matching puzzle games. Rows of blocks scroll in from the bottom of the screen and it is your job to make sure they don't reach the top. The basic idea is to clear the playfield by matching three or more like-colored blocks, though you can also try and match poker hands like Full Houses and Three-of-a-Kinds, which are matched by the card type each block represents. In other words, if a series of blocks create a Flush, they are still destroyed regardless of whether or not the colors of the blocks match. You can also set bombs that destroy single blocks and open up gaps or help you move columns of blocks into place.

Since matches can seemingly happen at any time, the game's pacing is much quicker than other puzzle games. This also makes combos more common, which are a sizeable component of the gameplay. With enough foresight and planning, combos can quickly grow into long combo chains; sometimes going as long as 50 or more block clears in one chain. While most players will likely never see these long chains, even the smallest of combos come with some sort of celebratory fireworks and poker chips, which can later be spent on new items like themes in the store.

This style of play carries through to all of Poker Smash's play modes with minor variations. Action is something of an endurance mode where you continue through levels with a row scroll that gets progressively faster, while Practice lets you continue with an endless game and Time Attack gives you a few minutes to create as many combos as possible. Multiplayer games feature two players and an added goal of being the guy with the most money. All are enjoyable modes, though like most Arcade games, the multiplayer community still hasn't developed, so online games can sometimes be hard to come by.

Despite being a little more complicated and up tempo than say, Bejeweled, Poker Smash still retains a pick-up-and-get-hooked quality. Novice players can stick to matching colors or hands and still enjoy themselves. Advanced players can match both and attempt to create long combo strings or match the bonus challenge hands that appear every few seconds. While these are hands that you'll create routinely over the course of a match, bonus challenges require specific color combinations, which are tricky to create.

Although Practice Mode is around to provide you with... well, practice, Puzzle Mode is a much better way to learn the game's ins-and-outs. Each scenario features an arrangement of blocks that must be cleared. Scenarios start out simple, but eventually require you to think two or three moves ahead in order to get blocks into position. This is a sure fire way to learn poker hands and how to set up longer combos.

In what could probably be called the first "dual-stick puzzle game," Poker Smash uses both analog sticks to switch blocks rather than button presses. The Left Analog Stick is used to move a selection cursor around the screen, while the Right Analog Stick is used to switch block positions. It is still possible to use the face buttons to flip blocks, though it doesn't feel as comfortable as using two sticks, especially when jumping blocks over gaps.

The rate rows appear at increases as the game progresses and can also be manipulated with the trigger buttons. If you find that you're clearing out rows faster than the game can produce them, you can speed up the scrolling with the Right Trigger. Pressing the Left Trigger sends the entire game into a "bullet time"; while this slows the scroll rate, it also slows the rate blocks clear at, making it better for setting up longer combos. In addition, the slow-mo feature can only be used for a few seconds at a time.

In the past year or so, I've played more than a few color-matching puzzles games and, until now considered 7 Wonders as the best of the bunch. After sinking more than a few hours into Poker Smash, I can definitely say that it has easily claimed the top spot. Even if you find Poker Smash's twist a little intimidating, its combination of ease of play and deep complexity makes it one of the best puzzle games available on XBLA.