There was a time, many moons ago, when school children would congregate on the computer room PC’s and play online games against one another. Websites such as Miniclip and Candystand would host fun and free online games where you could play by yourself or against a friend. I say this because I was one of these school children and among these games was the ever-popular Candystand Billiards which my school friends and I would sneak in during our lessons. The simplicity of the gameplay and the competitive nature was fun as we looked for alternatives instead of learning about Microsoft Office and coding. So recently I have been hit with a sense of nostalgia as I’ve been playing Pure Pool on the PlayStation 4 to see how the latest consoles improve on the classic ideas.
Ripstone and Voofoo Studios have teamed up to provide PS4, Xbox One and PC owners with the chance to play the best looking pool game ever made, and this is something which is apparent from the first break. The glisten from the balls and the slow motion instant replays, which play as you pot the black to win, look great and feel equally as good. One of the better features the game has is the slow motion replays as it allows you to know that your final shot is going in the pocket and that you’ve won. It plays out as a huge relief and it does feel great when it comes off.
The gameplay itself is what you’d normally expect from any pool game on a console: you can aim and put spin on the ball, but the main button interaction comes when you have to pull the right thumbstick towards you and thrust it forward to make the white ball go as fast as you wish. Basically it’s the same as every other pool game that has ever been created.
This is what the main problem is with Pure Pool; it’s much like every other pool game which has preceded it. Pool games don’t have the huge budgets which other games have as they aren’t developed by a big-name publisher and, therefore, they only have to work properly and Pure Pool works very well, but it just feels like any other pool or snooker based game in recent times. I mentioned Candystand’s classic free-to-play billiards from many years ago and this had most of the same features which Pure Pool has. It all works well enough, but there is no feature in the game which you haven’t seen before.
The game is heavily focused on multiplayer and pitting you against fellow human players of a similar ability. The game even goes as far as showing you the names of the players who have just booted up the game in the top left hand corner. This is a decent feature as you can see if anyone is online, even when the numbers of players have dwindled. In addition to the heavily online focus, there is a free play mode which sees you honing in your skills as you play against yourself. It’s a good way to get used to how the ball moves and what balls you are encouraged to concentrate on with the aiming mechanics. These indications don’t often offer a direct line into the pocket, if the pocket is too far away and makes precision all that more important, which can be the difference online.
With the game focusing on online multiplayer, the online modes are almost the same but with small variations. You are able to play 8 ball, 9 ball, Killer and Accumulator. While the first two game modes are self-explanatory, Killer provides each player with 3 lives and for each shot you don’t pot a ball, you lose a life. Once your number of lives reaches 0, you will automatically lose the game. Accumulator sees you potting balls numbered 1 to 15 and these balls have to be potted in order and you will be awarded the number of points which are on the ball. It reminds me a lot of snooker and is one of the finer game modes you can play.
There were times when I was searching for games to play and the searching screen would freeze. Although there were clearly people online, there was no notification to tell me that it wasn’t possible to find me a game, but these instances were few and far between. The main problem with the online modes is that there is no time limit between shots. There were times when I would be waiting more than a minute for the opponent to hit the shot. This is of course down to the human players, but a time limit would have been a nice addition.
Pure Pool is the definitive pool game to have as it looks good, plays well and has some varied game modes, but we’ve see it all before. It offers nothing new in terms of a pool game and, for me; it just feels as though I’ve played this title many times before, within my first two games of playing. The online community is there, at the moment, and is good when playing with friends. It’s little more than a re-skinned idea from the early 2000’s. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t offer anything new.
Pure Pool is available now on PS4, PC and is coming soon to the Xbox One.