Killer Pool claims to be ‘the most realistic pool experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch’. I’ve only tried one other pool game (the jailbreak app called simply ‘Pool’) – but I have to say it seems to me it would be awfully hard to beat this game in terms of realistic feel. One quick measure of its realism is that in real life I am a mediocre to bad pool player (usually better after a couple beers) and in Killer Pool I’m about the same level of player so far.
Despite not being a very good player, I enjoy playing pool a lot. All my favorite bars have a pool table, a dart board, or both. I don’t get to bars very often anymore though – so I’ve been enjoying pool on the iPhone instead with Killer Pool. Hit the jump for some reasons why I think this is a great game, and plenty of screencaps …
Game Options
This is my favorite thing about Killer Pool – the big range of options and settings when playing it. You can set things like:
Design of the table – you’ve got three good choices here – None (plain green table), Logo (which shows the full Killer Pool logo in the middle of the table), and Skull (which shows a skull motif middle of the table) …
Audio On/Off – toggle game sounds on or off – I much prefer hearing them, as they are very well done – I like hearing the smack of the balls, and the sound of balls dropping into pockets.
Hints On/Off – have never felt the need to turn these on – the game is pretty easy to follow and play.
What Game to Play – this is a great set of options, that helps keep the game fresh. You can choose to play 8 Ball, 9 Ball, Black Ball (UK style table with just reds, yellows, and black ball), Killer, and OctoKiller (haven’t tried this one yet – but it sounds fun: ‘a unique version of Killer played on an octagonal table’).
How Many Players – you can go with one or two players …
How Many Racks – from 1-19 …
Game Mode – another excellent feature of the game. You can choose to play a single match, a local competition, or a world championship. When you’ve only got a little time, single match mode is great. I enjoy the two tournament modes best though. I love having to win out over multiple racks, and progress through a series of opponents. I do OK in the local tourney, but mostly get my butt kicked if I venture up to World Championship mode – though I haven’t played it as much yet.
Game Play
As mentioned at the outset of this post, the game is very realistic feeling. The primary view mode when lining up and taking a shot is very crisp …
There’s also a Top View that lets you survey the whole table – which can be useful if you think the shot it has lined up for you is not the ideal one to play, or if you just need more of an overview of where all the balls are positoned.
When prepping your shot, you can adjust spin (I’ve never mastered that in real life, so never mess with it here either), line up and fine tune where you want to strike the ball quite easily, and adjust the power of your shot via the power bar.
The power bar works well. I like that it lets you stop, assess how strong you’ve got your shot set to be, and then hit ‘Play’ to take the shot, or continue modifying the strength of shot some more – i.e you don’t have to get it right all in one motion. If you prefer, you can also opt to use a swipe action rather than directly pressing on the power bar itself to determine strength of shot. My one small complaint with the power bar is that it is not very easy to see how much power you’ve got without stopping to look. It would be nice to be able to gauge this better as you are adjusting it.
The game even includes penalty shots if you or your opponent mess up and commit one of the various fouls within the rules of the different game modes …
I also like that the table just feels big in this game – which makes sinking a long shot feel very good …
If you exit the program and go back in, you can choose to start a new game or resume the last game you were playing. I don’t think there is any save option or ability to have more than one choice of game to resume.
Killer Pool offers pretty good instructions and rules as well, in case you need a refresher or an Intro to a new game.
Overall
Well, I let the cat well and truly out of the bag on my post a few days ago about the launch of a ‘Lite’ version of the game, in terms of what I think of Killer Pool. I said that if you like pool, this game kicks arse and takes names – and it really does!
I love the gameplay, the realism of the game, and the great variety of game modes you can play in. I can spend heaps (way too much) of time playing Killer Pool – and there’s always another challenge waiting …
I highly recommend Killer Pool. It’s great fun and the full version is worth every penny of its $2.99 price tag. Check it out in the App Store HERE. You can also check out the Lite (free) version (which only offers nine ball) if you want to get a feel for it before buying the full game.
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TAGS: iPhone pool games
