I ‘ve always known Steve Davis as an expert snooker (and pool) player, perhaps one of the greatest to play (and still be playing) the game, so it ‘s no surprise he ‘s attached his name to this new title, Steve Davis Pool Star (lite edition).
The lite version of this game offers just a straight format single player pool game allowing you a choice of a single, female, avatar and from what I can see you play against the same opponent. The full version offers just about every possibility “ 8-ball, 9-ball, straight pool and trick shot formats. It also allows you to compete in 3 international varieties including World Pool Masters, Premier League Pool and the coveted World Pool Championships. Added to that it also allows Wifi and internet multiplayer with up to eight players competing at a time. But that ‘s all in the full version, with the lite version merely offering you a small taste of that, wrapped in a bundle of refreshing graphics.
Gameplay is straightforward, you position the cue in relation to the ball, and also have the ability to pinpoint which part of the ball you want to hit to give it spin. The latter task being quite tricky as your finger usually covers the entire ball, making it hard to work out where the point is. But once you have mastered this, you are left with the power of the shot. You adjust the power by sliding the cue that appears on the left up and down, and finally shoot by pressing the shoot icon in the bottom left of the screen.
The good
The graphics in this game are superb, both the static table and animated balls and cue are smooth and clear. The background graphics, such as the audience, are merely a 2-dimensional dark cloud of grey but this doesn ‘t detract from the game. After each shot, you are presented with a short video of your shot, whilst the camera moves around the table to give you another angle. You are also able to switch between normal and landscape mode, giving you a wider view of the table.
Lining up your ball, and taking your shot using the cue stroke icon on the left works really well. The aspect I most like is that the resulting trajectory of both your target ball and the white ball is more realistic than most games. All it shows you is the expected path of your chosen target, up to a few inches, instead of showing you the entire path to the hole making it too easy, or not showing you anything at all, making it impossible. This also depends on how far the shot is across the table. A lot of other pool games fall into this trap and I am glad the developers decided against this for this game.
The opponent AI is better than I expected, I was beaten on my first two tries (I eventually did win, I promise!) with the computer opponent cleaning up after only two mistakes.
The bad
The sound is one area where the game falls down for me. The tinny sound of balls hitting each other, is about the only sound effect during the game. That along with some Oohing and Aahing during the game when you hit the wrong ball.
I also experienced a few bugs along the way. The camera angle after playing a shot, sometimes ends up facing away from the balls eventual path at the wrong end of the table. Although its worth mentioning it only happened a few times, and it wasn ‘t too frustrating. A more serious quirk was the game occasionally crashing and exiting, usually soon after loading. Hopefully these both can be ironed out in a future update, or the full version.
An area in which the lite version could have excelled was to give the potential buyer more to go on. One type of game, the same table and location, against one opponent might not result in a full version purchase from all iPhone users, even Pool fanatics.
The verdict
I enjoy Pool games, provided they are challenging, so I enjoyed the lite version but since it ‘s very limited in the variety of game formats, I was bored fairly quickly. Now while I realise this is the point of a lite version, I still think they could have added at least one additional variety, such as trick shot, even if it was limited to 1 game and opponent. This would definitely have kept me playing for longer. Would I buy the full version? Probably not, as while I enjoyed the basic Pool, there was no way to tell if any of the other formats would keep my attention for very long.
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TAGS: iPhone pool games
