The folks at Crave Entertainment have done an excellent job recognizing the first games flaws and fixing them in the second installment. In the first WCP game you were very limited as to what you could do. There wasn't really a career mode per say, you could simply pick what tournaments you wanted to play and as long as you had enough money in your bank account you were able to play them. In WCP 2 however that isn't the case. In WCP 2 they've created an extensive career mode that goes week by week. Each week you are given options on which tournaments you want to play in. You can only select one though, so pick your tournament carefully.

At each tournament you usually have a required place you need to finish in order to advance to the next week while at others you may have to simply make at least 200 dollars in order to advance. Some of the "special" tournaments don't have any requirements in order to advance to the next week. So really all you'd have to do is sit down, play a hand and leave and you'd advance a week but that really doesn't do you any good. Remember that you have to buy into the game, so if you play in this way you end up losing money more often than not, something you don' want to do often if you really want to advance through the game more long term.

Another bonus is you are almost required to learn new types of poker in this game if you want to play the career mode. I personally am only familiar with Texas Hold'em and 5 card draw. However, in order for me to progress in the game I had to learn to play Omaha, Pineapple, three different versions of seven card stud and two different versions of Razz, among others.

For some players this might be seen as a drawback but I see it as an excellent addition by the creators as it adds a sense of realism to the game itself. Poker players don't always play Texas Hold'em every week because sometimes there isn't a Texas Hold'em tournament worth playing in. So instead they play other styles of poker to keep themselves busy. You may be an expert at Texas Hold'em but learning to play Omaha, for example, certainly can't hurt.

Another nice addition that Crave Entertainment has made in this game is the "Pad." When you start the career mode you will be hosting private games in your mom's basement but as you progress through the game and make money you'll be able to move out of your mom's dinky basement and into your own swanky pad! The downside to this is there are only four to choose from, but you can at least decorate them with all sorts of goodies.

In order to gain these goodies you must take a trip to the local pawn shop. Here you can find all sorts of neat stuff including chairs, televisions, posters and even your own personal mini robot! The more money you make the more stuff you can buy for your pad as you progress through the game.

Another nice addition to this game is the ability to take out loans. Say there is a big tournament you want to enter but you just don't have the buy in cash? Well take a walk over to the pawn shop and they will give you a loan! You need to be careful, though, because if you don't pay the loan back they will reposes some of your goodies from you pad, which really ain't cool.

Crave also went out and spent the big bucks and got some pro poker players to make appearances in this game. Of course one of the players you'll see in the game is Howard Lederer (since the game is partly named after him) but you will also see his sister Annie Duke, Clonie Gowen, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer and Paul Darden. They also have Matt Savage, one of the world's most famous poker tournament directors, calling the action throughout the game.

The interface in the game is very simple and effective. You are able to see your cards and see how many people are in or out on the left hand side of the screen while at the bottom you see the community cards (if you are playing a game that has community cards). You also get two different views of the game in progress. You can either have a first person view where only see what's in front of you or you can have the static view where you jump around and see the table from several different angles. You can take your pick; I stick with the static view because I like seeing the different angles personally.

Crave Entertainment took the decent World Championship Poker and turned it into a great game with World Championship Poker 2 Featuring Howard Lederer. They improved so many of the faults in the previous version of the game that it's hard to overlook this game, especially for 20 bucks at any of your local gaming stores. Besides, if you're really a poker fan and you are tired of losing money then this is the way to go.