Real Pool isn't real captivating.
Written: Jun 29 '02 (Updated Jun 29 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Tons of gameplay options, easy to use interface.
Cons: There's only so much you can do with a pool video game.
The Bottom Line: Take it or leave it, it's your choice. It's got lots of options, but isn't very fun. However, it's pretty cheap.
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| fireballdw's Full Review: Real Pool for PlayStation 2 |
Real Pool is a well made game about pool (obviously) that was one of the first to come out on PS2. Looking at it objectively, it's very impressive, but personally I'm just not too impressed.
The sheer number of options is enough to make anyone take a second look at the game. One can play in 4 different modes: Carom, Pocket, Tournament, and Puzzle. You can play several different types of games in each of the modes. Pocket mode offers all the favorites, such as 8-Ball and 9-Ball. Tournament pits you against opponents to advance through the ranks, and Puzzle lets you play on awkward looking tables to pocket a set number of balls in a set number of shots.
Gameplay:
As far as gameplay goes, it's decent. The interface is pretty easy to catch on to, and all the options you should need to use are there.
A bar on the side lets you adjust your power at any time before the shot, you can choose the english on the ball as well as the orientation of the cue stick. You can choose to move the camera around however you like, and it has several preset camera angles such as players perspective and overhead.
There's a downside to being able to choose your power as easily as it lets you. Once you figure out the optimal power, you'll never lose the 'banking' round again (used to determine who goes first in the next match).
The multitude of options is what makes this game worth purchasing (if you're into pool video games, that is). As I mentioned before, there are 4 main modes, and if you add all the different types you can play under them, you have at least two dozen different pool games. The puzzle mode is fun, as you have several dozen strange pool tables to play on. I would have liked more real pool tables with specially set up trick shots, but the puzzle mode satisfied me.
One annoying thing about the gameplay is that every time you pocket a ball, it puts a big sign on the screen saying what ball you pocketed, as if you didn't already know. Informative the first time, but it gets old quick.
The only other thing that bugged me was that if you picked a camera angle (I like using the overhead camera a lot), after shooting, it goes back to the default camera.
Graphics and Sound:
It's not too hard to draw a ball, cue stick, and pool table. I have no complaints as far as the graphics of the pool table go. The pool halls are very bland, and the big letdown is that you don't have a character, just a floating cue stick.
When you play in tournament mode, the computer picks a cartoonish character, but this character is only displayed before they shoot and afterwards. Even for a first generation PS2 game, this is surprising.
Sound is good. When you hit the cue ball and balls collide, it's a very realistic sound. The music is superior -- more than I expected.
Summary:
As I said in my introduction, objectively this game looks good, but once you play it, it's just not much fun. For me, the best pool game is still Side Pocket (which came out on NES, SNES, Genesis, and a few other systems). It's one of the cheaper games out there for PS2, so even for all of it's faults, I can't say it's necessarily a bad purchase.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
fireballdw
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Member: Derek Williams
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 84
Trusted by: 18 members
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