Does it improve you ! (Virtual Pool 3 (PC))

Member Name: Ibanez Man

Product:	Virtual Pool 3 (PC)
Date:	24/08/01 (450 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Realistic, Improves your play ??

Disadvantages: Bugs

The third in a line of very succesful pool simulators, and without sounding like I made the game, by far and away the best. No other game has captured the realism and ball motion like Virtual Pool.

Well, the second game was a huge improvement on the original, and despite not really boosting the graphics up, the third game has added a hell of a lot more features, and game modes. Probably the best of these new game modes is the career option. With this you start off with a small amount of money, and start playing in a dingy garage. Any game mode can be used in career, so even those into 3-ball ?? can become a rich champion.

Basically, every person at one location has a certain amount of money, and in order to play them, you must have the same or more youeself. If you win you take whatever their stake was, and if you lose, the same stake is taken from your winnings. The idea is to earn enough money to move on to the next pool place. Normally this means disposing of a 'boss' character, who while pretty poor to start with, can be quite mean players later on. The aim of the career is to get to play Jeanette Lee (the woman on the front cover). You get to travel to her very classy beach house, and belive me, if you got lucky to get here, you will be destroyed !!!

The very extensive game modes range from the obvious 9-ball, 8-ball, and straight pool, to the very bizarre cowboy, bowlliards, and honolulu. I must say I am very happy to see the inclusion of snooker in this version, whilst not being absouloutely perfect, it's still the best snooker sim i've played. The only problem being is that you have to play snooker on the standard pool tables, like a standard pool career. But there is a table available to play on that is full size, which is nice :)

Whilst i'm not going to go into all the game types, and how they play, as this would be a games magazine review, hehe, I must say bowlliards is quite a unique ad
dition. You break off the 10 balls, then like in normal ten pin bowling, you have two goes to knock all the pins down. Except now, each pin is represented by a pool ball, and you must pot themm all, in any order, to claim your points. You obviousely get a point for each ball, if you make them all first time you get a strike, and if you take both shots you get a spare.

One game mode which is a decent addition is the tournament. It's very straightforward, so not much to explain. You decide the number of players, the type of game, games to get to win etc, and then it's just a knockout till there is a winner.

Another really good feature is the movies section, here you can watch Jeanette Lee play various types of shots that you will mostly need to become a good player. After the movie is over, you can click on the try shot button, and try and emulate her.

There is the typical arcade mode, and the trick shot mode from the first one. But one of the best features I have found is the multiplayer one, via gamespy arcade. Whilst not being the most friendly pieces of software, it just about does the job, and you can't compare to playing a fellow human, it's great fun.

The one real dissappointment with the mulitplayer games though are the bugs. I mean fair enough companies bring out patches to fix them, but it is beyond a joke that such a simple matter could be overlooked, and something needs to be patched. The main thing I am on about is, if you try to play Snooker online, it's actually not possible to pot a red without commiting a foul, which was very annoying, as it would be great multiplayer.

The other menu options, apart from the help ones, are for statistics. Whilst being interesting and useful at first, I realised after a few games these were not being calculated properly, so it was time to look to the new patch...again.

One angle Virtual Pool seems to keep on about is the fact that playi
ng the game will actually improve your real life play, and i've seen that if you send it back and say it doesn't you get your money back. Despite tempting game pirates, I think it's a good idea, and to be honest I reckon it probably will help a lot of peoples real games. Whilst it can't teach you how to cue straight and smoothly, it can help you greatly with shot angles, positional play, shot selection, and ball spin. Despite being, in my opinion, very exaggerated, the spin on the game gives you a great idea of what to expect in real life, so experiment !!

The control system hasn't really changed from the original, it is the same s for shoot, e for spin, a to aim. But why change them I suppose, they are perfect, and even now, the way you stirke the ball couldn't be any better. For those of you who have never played the game, you have to press s to shoot, then pull the mouse back, and push it forward, at whatever speed you wish to strike the ball at. Very simple, but perfectly done.

Despite not being the most graphically awesome game ever, you will still need a reasonable pc to run it, especially when playing over the net. Difficulty wise, i'd say this game more than caters for everyone, from the pool virgin to pool legend, there is a challenge for anyone.

I do actually play pool and snooker myself in real life, so it's not really changed my game, but I would be very interested to know if it has helped anybody to play better. Hopefully it will encourage these pool amateurs to pick up a cue confidently in their local establishment, and play with their Virtual Pool experience :)

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