World Championship Pool 2004

Imagine a world where you are a ball.  Not just any ball, but the most powerful ball in the bunch.  Push the other balls around and watch 'em run for cover.  It's not as if they can fight back.  You can go anywhere and do anything – so long as it’s within the confines of the table.

That should give you an idea of what you can expect from World Championship Pool 2004, a game that is based solely on the game of pool.

In a nutshell, you could say that the game plays like Super Monkey Ball with more options and more depth.  If you've never played SMB (which is very possible, considering that that game is a GameCube exclusive and WCP 2004 is a PlayStation 2 exclusive), then think about my previous description.  You control the cue stick, which is, at all times, pointed at the cue ball.  Tons of adjustments can be made to help you line up that perfect shot, like the point at which the stick will hit the ball and the amount of force you will hit it with.

Power is easy to increase or decrease; instead of using a meter that must be selected quickly as the power goes up and down, you can change it yourself.  This is great for recreating the same hit power for shots that appear to be similar, and is even better for those shots that require a very light touch.  There's no guessing as long as you know what you're doing.  If you don't you'll catch on quick.

World Championship Pool 2004's physics are pretty realistic.  I wasn't blown away or even amazed by the way the balls reacted to various shots, but by that same token the game never felt cheesy or unrealistic.  Technologically you can only go so far with the physics of a game that's based on pool, and at this point it appears as if the developers went as far as they could.

For variety and for your playing pleasure, World Championship Pool 2004 includes seven different game modes: 8 Ball, 9 Ball, Career Mode, Straight Pool, Trick Shots, Fun Games, and Snooker.  The basic games don't really need an explanation, so let's jump right to Trick Shots.

The Trick Shots mode is a collection of trick shots (who would have thought?).  There are nearly two-dozen trick shots to complete.  They include crazy objectives like Awesome U-Turn (strike the 1 ball to send it into the bottom left pocket, then come straight back to knock in the 4) and Hallucination (aim straight at the 1 to send it into the middle right pocket, the 4 and 7 to the middle left, and the 3 to the bottom right).

This is all good for pool fans, especially those of you who enjoy playing the simplistic, 2D pool games that many Web sites offer.

What's not good is the game's slow speed and lack of significant sounds.  You get music on the title screen but nowhere else.  I guess that makes sense theoretically.  If I were to have sword fight in the real world, right here, right now, it wouldn't include music.  Should the story be retold on a movie screen, however, it would be a must that an orchestral soundtrack be used to immerse the audience into the scene.

The same is true with games.  Hearing the soft sounds of balls being knocked around is painful when you've had to hear them and only them for a lengthy period of time.

Most pool players are used to having additional background noise.  Bars are never quiet.  Yet this game, which takes place in a typical pool setting, does not include any of the familiar background noises: loud music, people talking, beer glasses being broken, etc.  (Okay, maybe that last one is just in the movies.  But the rest are definitely real.)

Raining on the game's parade is unbalanced AI.  Human players get to experience real-world physics, but the computer plays the game like a hustler: sometimes it'll let you win and other times you’ll be crushed.

Furthermore, the background animations stink.  I know that pool is a slower game – but this is a video game.  You can speed up the monotonous animations of your opponents taking the time to walk around the table and set up the perfect shot, but you still have to watch it.

Online play is excluded for gamers on narrowband with AOL, but the booklet insists that AOL broadband users should be able to play the game online.  It also says that most other dial-up ISPs are compatible with the game but fails to give a list of the ones that are or aren't.

World Championship Pool 2004's full-game price is disappointing.  If it were a budget game ($19.99 or less), I could easily recommend it to people who love video or Web game pool.  But the game is not what I would consider to be a "full" game, making it impossible to justify the full price.

Gameplay: 5.8
World Championship Pool 2004 is attempts to give players the wonderful real-world experience of playing pool without losing any of the realism.  Did they succeed?  They could've, but not with unstructured AI and an analog stick for a pool cue.  The former is a very difficult problem to fix; the latter is rather easy, if not a little expensive – release a pool cue peripheral like the ones designed for the PC.  Then you'd get more precision, as well as an experience that's truer to the real game.

The developers designed the game to respond to the slightest of touches, so using the analog stick isn't totally bad.  I knew what to expect going into this game, but that flaw is still worth noting.

The AI needs a lot of work though.  Opponents shouldn't go up and down in skill – they should be the same at all times.  This does not mean that all of the opponents should play the same.  But whatever level each opponent starts at is the level they should stay at.

Graphics: 4
Good ball physics, but visually the game is unimpressive.

Sound: 3
Even in a game as basic as pool, sound is a key element to success.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Pool is much more challenging in real life.

Concept: 6
Good ideas are presented in World Championship Pool 2004, but the execution isn't always spectacular.

Multiplayer: 5

Overall: 5.5
Every major sport has been faithfully re-created in a video game world: football, hockey, basketball, etc.  Even golf has gotten appropriate realistic (Tiger Woods) and unrealistic (Mario) treatments.  Every sport except pool.  Pool may not be a sport in the traditional sense, but its fans are just as dedicated.  In many ways they're more dedicated.  After all, you don't see too many people sitting around a big TV, watching people play pool for hours.  No, pool fans act like gamers – they must get in on the action and compete.

The only question now is: Is there a video game that gives players a virtual version of that experience?

Super Monkey Ball did it with fewer rules and less realism in 2001.  The game included several mini-games, one of which was pool.  It was pretty addictive, especially when playing with someone who enjoys the real thing.

Now we have World Championship Pool 2004.  Is it the ultimate pool experience that pool lovers have been waiting for?  Not quite.  Online play is restricted, the gameplay is slow, the AI is unbalanced, and the camera isn't as smooth or as "dynamic" as in Monkey Ball.