Expert Pool

Pros • PoolShark compatible • Excellent physics • Responsive control	Cons • Weak tutorial • Weak commentary AI • Environments devoid of life
Bottom Line Expert Pool is an excellent, solid pool simulator that certainly looks better than anything before it---but boasts no major improvements on the pool-sim formula. Expert Pool could probably squeak out of the virtual halls of The Electric Playground with an “8” rating, but it’s my review and I’m pissed off----see, there’s this pool pro named Allison Fisher, and not so long ago, Psygnosis had grand, lofty plans to release Expert Pool as a product endorsed by (and featuring as in-game personality), Ms. Fisher and (presumably) all the wit and wisdom the Women’s Professional Billiard Association superstar could bring to the computer monitor. It would have been like all those athlete-endorsed basketball, baseball and football games out there, but----and I say this with the utmost respect for these three sports---not complete crap. Well, somebody obviously flimmed where they should have flammed at the last minute, and Fisher is nowhere to be seen.

Expert Pool could probably squeak out of the virtual halls of The Electric Playground with an “8” rating, but it’s my review and I’m pissed off----see, there’s this pool pro named Allison Fisher (those of you familiar enough with pool to know who I’m talking about probably already know where I’m going with this, and can skip to the next ‘graph without missing anything), and not so long ago, Psygnosis had grand, lofty plans to release Expert Pool as a product endorsed by (and featuring as in-game personality), Ms. Fisher and (presumably) all the wit and wisdom the Women’s Professional Billiard Association superstar could bring to the computer monitor. It would have been like all those athlete-endorsed basketball, baseball and football games out there, but----and I say this with the utmost respect for these three sports---not complete crap. Well, somebody obviously flimmed where they should have flammed at the last minute, and Fisher is nowhere to be seen.

Yeah, I’ll get it out of the way and admit it’s a good, nay, great pool-sim---and it looks better than any computer-pool effort before it (Virtual Pool 2 is just as good a pool engine and had other things going for it too...but there’s no denying it looks pretty cartoony next to this thing). Expert Pool offers 19 types of pool games, including 8-ball, 9-ball, cut-throat, straight pool and rotation, as well as French billiards and the sad-ass bastardization known as “British Pool” (Yeah, I know we’re all Western Allied Friends and all that happy-crappy----but two shots after a scratch? Kiss my star-spangled butt. No wonder you chip-nibblers couldn’t hold the freakin’ Empire together). If you can do it on a real table, you can do it here---force-follows, draw shots, jump shots, and more. The physics are top-of-the-line, and you’ll be even be able to do weird, scary stuff like radical masses and “timed banks” (the shot that, in my mind, will forever be The Single Shot I Lost Thirty Bucks On).

But if we already had an excellent pool sim on the market, we’d be looking for something new here, and Expert Pool is...kinda more of the same. It’s a game of excellent execution but missed opportunity. For example, Expert Pool kicks graphical butt with its detailed, personality-rich environs (ranging from grand billiard parlours and tournament halls to sticky biker-bars), but don’t expect to get anything from the different settings---those distant tables and people are as inaccessible to you as the farthest quasar.. Initially, the environments of Expert Pool were going to be living settings, wherein players could, for example, watch the progress of other ongoing games (a terrific idea)...but the fancy-pants pool halls are just big, empty lonely arenas full of deaf-mute digital dolls.

Expert Pool offers tutorial sections devoted to basic skills, trick shots and some theory; they’re pretty much a try-the-shot-until-you-get-it-right affair, without the reassuring (albeit sometimes irritating) presence of the mid-level pool celebs featured in Virtual Pool 2 via full-motion video. Some in-game commentary which I’m pretty sure is that of Women’s Professional Billiards Association director Steve Tipton lends an air of cred and name-recognition coolness...but the commentary AI is absolutely abysmal, alternating between cracks like “wow, that’s a bad shot” (something Mr. Tipton would almost surely never say during a competition) after a hard-won safety and blatant, sad plugs for Kasson Tables that----and I love Kasson, don’t get me wrong---have nothing to do with anything as far as the game’s concerned.

It comes down to this: Expert Pool is aptly named---if you’re fairly seasoned and just want to virtually play some pool, you won’t find a better-looking, more complete engine. If you’re a newcomer and would like a little bit of friendly-hand-holding as you enter the universe of the great green-felt game, you’re in shark-infested waters.

Info & Screenshots