Virtual Pool

The Good
I love playing pool. Don't ask me why, but the menial task of knocking pool balls into holes on a grantie slab with felt is just cool.

Virtual Pool is a fantastic pool game that actually feels like your playing pool.

The graphics for its time are great. The balls look real (albeit a bit pixely), and the pool room/locales are tastefully done.

The Sound is great as well. Each ball hit must have been sampled from a real table, because it just sounds too good. Depending on how hard you hit the cue ball (more on that later) will determine how loud the sound of the two balls connecting is. It's pretty cool.

But where the game really shines (but is also a hinderance in some ways) in sthe Control. Instead of a "Power Meter" like in most arcade games, the strength of your shot is determined by how fast you pull back/push forward on your mouse. Similar to TrueSwing in PGA Championship 2000, the mouse is used to gauge how fast your cue stick is moving. You can adjust the angle of the butt, the area where the tip meets the cue ball (to apply english) and the speed of the stick. And it all reacts as if it were real.


The Bad
The Control :)

As much as I love the fact that you use the mouse to determine your cue stick speed, there are TOO many keyboard commands to remember. You almost have to have a command summary to play.

Another thing I can't stand is the fact that you can't play in an overhead view to make your shots. If you go overhead to look at the layout of the table, you can't make your shot. It automatically switches to the "first person" mode.

The Bottom Line
Other than those two things, I enjoy play VP. It's a great pool game for those who don't have the processing power to run the sequels.

Bottom Line: a fantastic pool game worthy of any hard drive.