World Championship Snooker

"An excellent video game version of snooker."

World Championship Snooker is one of the best transitions of the game to the computer format. Most everything is well done in this game, and if you like snooker you should definitely check it out. Personally I didn’t really understand snooker before I began playing this game, but through it I have learned to like the game very much. Due to the number of balls and the size of the table there’s more strategy than pool, and in this game you can attempt most any kind of shot you could do in real life thanks to a well designed game system.

Graphics: 8
Overall they’re very good. The table and balls themselves (which is virtually everything that’s really significant in a snooker game) look outstanding, and extremely realistic. The players appear when taking a shot, and admittedly they do have a bit of the nightmarish polygon people look. Still, the animation for them isn’t bad, albeit limited. After all how many animations are there for a snooker player? The different venues you play in look nice, though it is strange that other than when you play at the crucible there is no visible crowd. Overall it’s a sharp game graphically by Playstation standards.

Sound: 8
The only reason it’s not a 10 is the terrible commentary. He gets on my nerves beyond all belief. Luckily there is an option to turn him off, I certainly make use of it. Otherwise the sound is strong. The sounds of cue against ball, the subdued crowd, and the various impact sounds of ball on ball, or ball into pocket are all strong. No in game music, though there is music for the menus and the nice intro on the game (with real video highlights as well). This is the kind of game where the simplicity of what’s been done is a good idea.

Play Control: 8
Another strong score. Basic shot making isn’t tough, and the shots that are tough to make are tough for a reason – they’d be tough in real life. It takes a lot of practice to learn spin, but it isn’t something that is absolutely essential in most situations so you can work around that limitation. Once you learn to read the table and how to make your shots, you can go on a big break. Unlike many PC versions of pool or snooker where you are reliant on a mouse to make shots (shudder), the PS controller is a huge help, and allows you to focus on planning your shots instead of focusing on not blowing everything.

Game Design: 9
Quite strong. There’s a “masterclass” feature, which is basically a super-large tutorial schooling you on snooker. It’s essential to try the lessons that teach ball spin, and the early lessons are very helpful to help you learn basic shot making too. There are some advanced shot making classes as well, but they’re more there if you want a big challenge, as it is quite possible to win games without knowing how to jump the ball and then spin it three quarters of the way across the table.

You have a huge variety of opponents to play against, including many of the top pro players in the world, and a group of (I assume) fictitious amateurs. Stick to playing the amateurs for quite a while. The pros are pros for a reason. You can choose several different venues to play in, the number of frames to play, and the difficulty levels. You can also play leagues where your put into pools with a group of players and you play a round robin mode. You actually create your own character, and you can name him, give him whatever look you want (surprising number of possibilities), and choose if he’s right or left handed – which can have quite an effect on certain situations, though I don’t think either has any real advantage. You can save up to eight different characters of your own, so if you’re playing your friends you can all create your own player.

My only complaint is that you have to save two separate things (though it only takes 1 memory card block total). You save your character data, and you save your “hall of fame” (highest breaks you’ve scored) data separately and I’ve often forgot to do the second, which is a little annoying though nothing major.

Challenge: 9
Lots of challenge. Even once you can thrash the amateur players, I promise you the pros will give you a run for your money almost every game, as they all seem to be real masters at ball spin and positioning the ball almost precisely where they would like it. It’s also a tremendous multiplayer game, a lot of fun with a friend.

Overall (Straight average of the above scores): 8.4 out of 10
I have very few complaints about the game, and I enjoy it a lot. For what you’d pay for PS1 games nowadays it would almost certainly be worth what you’d pay for it. If you are a fan of snooker I highly recommend this game to you.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/04