What’s the most important thing for a video game adaptation of pool? I wasn’t sure, going into this review. However, as an awful billiards player in real life, simulations have always been my respite, and I have particularly fond memories of two games franchises: Archer Maclean’s various snooker and pool games, and Celeris’ Virtual Pool series. So I decided to take an example from one of those franchises, and see how Pool Plus Friends stands up to it.

As I didn’t want to put this game at too large a disadvantage, I thought I’d go with the oldest example of a pool game from those choices, Archer Maclean’s Pool (1992), see exactly what made it great, and how Pool Plus Friends compares.

Amazing graphics

AMP (as it shall now be known) really pushed the boundaries of graphics at the time, offering a first-person perspective of the proceedings. For 1992, that was pretty hot stuff. Using the same engine as Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, the game did a good impression of being in 3D, which combined with the surprisingly smooth animation for the time means it may look primitive, but not ugly.

Pool Plus Friends… is less impressive. Eschewing first-person, it sticks to the tried and tested top-down view. This makes the game a little less immersive than it could be, but is perhaps the best choice for a game restricted to a mobile phone screen, particularly one designed to be played online: allowing the player to see the whole table at a glance helps games play through quickly. Less acceptable is the fact that the game is juddery. Not in a way which impacts gameplay, but should you loose a fast shot into a cluster of balls you’ll notice them ‘teleport’ around the table. Also as a disappointment to any British players, there’s no option to replace the spots and stripes with our more commonly used reds and yellows, but that’s a minor issue. Despite these issues Pool Plus Friends isn’t actually ugly, and it’s easy to recognise the various balls. It just wants for a little more flair.

Perfect physics

This was what made Archer Maclean’s games really stand out. The physics were spot-on: the way the cue ball reacted to the cue, the way balls rebounded, the way over-strength shots would result in balls bouncing out of the pocket while weak shots would see them roll in, made the whole thing completely believable. And, of course, game allowed you to screw (or draw, for you Americans) the cue ball for better control. It just felt like a perfect simulation of the sport.

Pool Plus Friends goes for a much simpler approach. Not only can you not screw the ball, but the zoomed-out perspective means your angles on the ball are limited, while the juddery animation means that even if the game calculated the angles perfectly, it would never feel right. And, worst of all: the game offers guide lines, which it then doesn’t always follow. Which is to say, it will sometimes show the cue ball clipping off another ball, but when you take the shot it will sail right past. I’m all for adding challenge to the game, but lying to the player doesn’t seem to best way to do it.

Variety

How much variety can a pool game offer? A lot, actually. AMP had a variety of modes, allowing for up to four-player (team-based) games, which could be populated with any combination of CPU and human players, all on the same machine. It had trick shots for you to play, and perhaps most importantly, it let you choose the ruleset. Because it’s important to remember that there are significant differences in different countries’ and associations’ rulesets.

Pool Plus Friends ups the ante by offering online multiplayer. In 1992, online multiplayer was, strangely enough, not really on the cards. This is a great inclusion, and really adds value to the game. Unfortunately, the developers didn’t see fit to include the option for local multiplayer, which you wouldn’t imagine would be too hard to implement. What with pool being turn-based, and all. It also includes trick-shots (or challenges, as it calls them), and has a couple of extra, non-pool-rules based ‘Points Games’, which are a nice touch. Unfortunately, these modes are only available to play against the AI. You also can’t choose your ruleset, unlike AMP. Which is actually a little worse than it may sound…

The Rules

As already mentioned, AMP allowed the player to choose their ruleset. Unsurprisingly, its simulation of these rules was exacting and accurate. Pool Plus Friends, is similarly exacting and accurate. Unfortunately, it’s exacting and accurate in enforcing the rules for Canadian eight-ball, which is notable for being particularly different from most other systems, which can make it a very disorienting experience for anyone unused to them. When selling a game internationally, it’s important to cater for everyone you’re selling to, and Pool Plus Friends distinctly fails to do so.

In the end, I still wasn’t sure what the most important thing that a video game adaptation of pool had to do was, exactly. But I did learn one thing: that Pool Plus Friends is a severely flawed game. Some of its problems are minor – the jerkiness of the graphics, the lack of local multiplayer. And it does some things very right: not least the inclusion of online multiplayer, and its wide variety of game modes. But these can’t make up for its two major failings: its focus on a single ruleset, thus alienating the vast majority of pool players, and its fuzzy physics. Should the developers ever go back and tweak the physics, or add in other rulesets, then this game would instantly become more worthwhile. Hell, if they did both it could actually be great. But until that moment, I can’t recommend this game highly. Well, except to Canadian players desperate for a fix.

Pool Plus Friends Gameplay Video

Pool Plus Friends Screenshots

Background : tgraphic.com

Version Under Review : 1.2

Website : iCodeLight, Twitter : @iCodeLight

There is a trial version available and the full version is available for $1.99, we are not sure what are the limitations of the trial version.

Our Rating for Pool Plus Friends

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