Review written by Bill Schoonmaker
Chillingo - The Premier Games Publisher
&b=POCKETGAMER">Buy Miniature Pool from Clickgamer
Miniature Pool surprised me in how much I've played it during my review period. It's a fun game that is great for a quick 5 minute break and a nice challenge if you have time to sit down and play 9 holes. The physics engine might not be a Virtual Pool contender but this game does what it intends to do, be a fun arcade game that keeps you coming back for more. I hope the developers produce more courses or maybe create a Miniature Pool 2 to address the few issues that bring it's score down. Ultimately, it's a great value for the price and deserves a spot on your PDA.
Miniature Pool has a nice main menu where the title is prominently displayed and a picture of a miniature golf hole with billiard balls being pushed around is shown. Once you enter the game, you'll be treated to a top down view of each hole, or in the case of the normal pool game, a view of the standard billiards table with six pockets.
There are a total of 27 miniature pool holes in the game. These are spread out across three separate courses. Pool Hall Junkies keeps the look of a billiard table, with wooden edges and green felt. Tropical Vacation is surrounded by rich folliage and the surfaces resemble beach sand. Industrial Nightmare is flanked with machinery while the surface looks metalic and can contain many moving parts. Each hole can have multiple pads where you can start with the cue ball. The holes can also have obstacles such as trees, walls, sand traps, acid, water and odd angles. One neat feature is banked surfaces, the felt is usually darker to create the look of a higher or lower surface and when you hit the ball onto the surface it will react accordingly. The balls themselves are nicely rendered and have a shiny look to them, they don't necessarily roll but they do look good. As I said the holes are nicely drawn and each will challenge you to figure out how to finish in the least amount of strokes.
Sound
The game has pretty sparse sounds. There is no music to speak of and I found myself thinking about firing up the MP3 player prior to loading so I would have some background music to listen to. A couple of bouncy tunes would have been nice here but as I've said before, to me, most in-game music gets boring so this is not much of a deduction. A background music would have been nice on the title screen. In game, there are sounds for when you strike the cue ball, as the balls hit each other or bounch off of walls and even if you enter an obstacle such as sand or water. All told, the Sound is not very prominent in this game but it also doesn't seem to take away from the fun.
Gameplay
You can control your cue stick with the stylus or the hardware cursor controller. I prefer the stylus as you can pull the shot aimer from the cue to where you want to go. You can also fine tune your shot with the onscreen controls at the top of each hole and this is sometimes necessary to get a precise shot. Basically you set up your shot, the farther away from the cue ball you pull your shot line, the harder you will hit the ball. Sometimes you can't pull far enough away for the power you want so you will have to use the power control at the top of the screen. You can also use the angle control for greater flexibility over exactly where you want your cue ball to go. If you sink the cue ball accidentally, you can place it back onto one of the pads on the hole and begin shooting again, you'll receive a penalty stroke though.
Each hole begins with your cue ball on the pad, a set of balls ahead of you and several pockets with which to sink each ball. Each hole also has a par, and here is where the golf element comes in. You must try and sink all balls in or under par. Along the way you'll find obstacles to get around, hazards to avoid and banks to use to your advantage. Occasionaly a hole will show a star in front of it, if you mange to sink a ball into one of these holes (usually not easy) then you'll gain a bonus stroke. You can apply right or left hand english (not up and down) to help make your shots using the english tool on the left of the screen. There is a re-rack option on each hole that will allow you to start over, this is a nice feature if you've really messed up on a particular hole as it takes away the strokes for the last attempt only and not all previous completed holes. You are given the option to save the game on any level as well. There are nine slots with which to save so if you are working on three different courses simultaneously you'll have plenty of save slots to keep you going. After you complete all 9 holes of any course your final score is shown and you are given a rating. This score and rating, if the best, will be posted to the high scores table.
Sometimes the physics will leave you with questions. When two balls collide, one will go off in a direction extremely fast while the other will barely move. I tried a few of these shots on my real table to get the feel for what really should happen and I was right, the reactions of the balls are sometimes wrong. However, this doesn't really detract from the gameplay as I believe the developers opted for a more arcade feel. It may persuade your decision however if you are going at this game for the pool simulation and not the miniature golf of it.
Pros:
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Great original concept with good replay value
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Attractive graphics
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Easy to get into, hard to master
Cons:
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No music and minimal sound effects
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No multiple high scores, only one per course
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No 2 player miniature pool, only in normal pool
Score-by-score breakdown
Gameplay: 80%
Graphics: 80%
Sound: 80%
Overall: 70%
Please note that the overall score is more than simply an average of the individual ratings. Many thanks to Sword and Spirit for providing our review copy.
You may wish to search for more reviews of games from Sword and Spirit. Alternatively, you can view all the reviews written by Bill Schoonmaker.
