It’s like you have a pool table all to yourself, but with the pressure of a time limit to force rapid-fire play. You don’t have to pot the balls in any order, you don’t need to hit spots or stripes, or sink the 8-ball last. There’s a purity, an unfussiness to the central idea that is immediately appealing. In short, the reason I’m still playing is the solidity of the core design. And the frequency with which you’re ‘encouraged’ to give it a five-star rating on the App Store is almost reason enough to deduct another mark from its score. It doesn’t even look as good, either: the realistic aesthetic of the original given a cartoonish sheen. But what is that if not an acknowledgement of flawed design, a concession that the iOS controls don’t match up to the PC game?Ī game – let’s repeat it once more – which is completely free to play. Sensibly, Miniclip has extended the time limit, thus easing the pain somewhat. Find yourself next to a cushion, though, and hitting anything but a pathetically tame shot is nigh-on impossible. Which works fine for all occasions where you’re not near the edge of the table. The only safe way to take a shot is to slide your finger back along the cue and let go. Half the time, however, this results in the aiming reticule going haywire as it misreads your intent.
Theoretically, you can do this anywhere across the table. To take a shot, you need to slide your finger parallel to the cue before releasing. Tragic pocketsįine-tuning with chunky digits can be a slow process, especially as lifting your finger from the screen to actually take the shot can effect a tiny but crucial shift in your aim. What was a perfectly tuned setup with a mouse in hand is now more fiddly than Topol. It’s not because of the controls, either. Clear 14 of each 15-ball rack and they’ll all be replaced, with your only objective to keep knocking them in until the time runs out. The game features a single mode with a simple task: pot as many balls as you can (I do hope John Virgo's not reading this - PG lawyer #1). Why? Well, it’s certainly not because it’s rich in content. Granted, that’s not an enormous sum of money, but to reiterate: you’re paying for an inferior version of a game you can play for free in your web browser. Let’s get straight to the point: Miniclip's 8 Ball Pool is a weaker version of a free PC flash game ( 8 Ball Quick Fire Pool) that costs 69p.
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