I find it bizarre that two of the PlayStation 2 games at launch are pool games. Pool on any console is a strange concept, in my humble opinion, but the PS2 manages to make it a beautiful and skillful sport. Unfortunately, the skill doesn’t exactly involve much feeling or a light touch. Rather, what is required is the intelligence to line up a geometric angle and adjust for power before tapping a button, so if pool is your game of choice, you should find Real Pool at least slightly interesting.
Real Pool contains several different games for pool fans: 8–ball, 9–ball, Rotation and Straight Pool, and there are other games such as Carom and Bowliards, which offer a variety. The physics of the game are very effective — balls move in a realistic manner and are affected by angles, speed, rotation and a host of other factors that make for a realistic pool game feel.
Unfortunately, this game suffers in the game play department. For example, in order to hit the ball, you line up the shot, adjust the angle of the cue and location of the hit on the ball, then raise a power meter up or down. Once everything is set to your liking, a tap of a button sends the cue ball flying — that’s it. The game doesn’t make use of the analog buttons at all, and the analog sticks are only used to line up a shot, which is a bit confusing as the right stick is used to line up a shot while the left stick enables you to spin the view around the cue ball. In addition, lining up a shot can be frustrating, as you place the stick full over to the side, which then moves around very slowly for the first few seconds after which it speeds up dramatically. This gives you a feeling of impatience when a player just wants to line up for another ball. Then you experience frustration when you can’t stop the rotation as the ball overshoots the desired angle — in other words it takes a while to line up a shot.
The positive aspect of Real Pool is that the game does contain enough interesting extras to keep you coming back. Especially the puzzle mode in which you are challenged with a variety of differently shaped pool tables, such as crosses, circles, and stars, and you are given a predetermined number of balls as well as a set number of times that the balls can strike the cue. The objective is to sink all of the balls in a set number of strokes, which is far easier said than done.
Other than the puzzle mode Real Pool doesn’t have much more to offer than any other pool game except for the exceptional PS2 graphics. I have to admit, Sony’s new machine does a good job of rendering a bunch of pool balls. And while Real Pool isn’t a horrible game, the one other pool game that’s available for the PlayStation 2, Q–Ball: Billiards Master, is a tad better overall.
"Real Pool shan’t exactly obtain top–notch reviews. Perhaps the developers handn’t ’felt’ the urge to produce a top–of–the cue game!"
