Developer: VooFoo Studios
Publisher: Ripstone
Platform: PC, PS4
Pure Pool – Review
Simulator games have taken over! From surgery to drinking soda, there’s a simulator for nearly everything now, one sillier than the other. Pure Pool however is a realistic, lifelike and casual pool simulator. It has stunning graphics, realistic physics and smooth jazz!
Story
A story in Pure Pool is nowhere to be found, but who needs it in a game about playing pool? You start up the game and hop right into action in practice mode, online mod, versus mode or tournament mode!
Graphics
The graphics of Pure Pool are simply amazing. The balls are beautiful and shiny, the pool table looks realistic and even the pool clue looks amazing! In the background you can see a blurred out fancy bar and people, suggesting that you are playing in a sort of fancy club to show off your skills. The game runs smooth and and doesn’t drop any frames, so consistent performance is assured.
The game doesn’t like being started up however, when starting the game you get a configuration window which allows you to select the screen, quality and display mode. Somehow, the game really doesn’t like being started in windowed mode or 1080p fullscreen. It crashes a lot and pushes stuff away on your second monitor if you’re using one. After a few restarts, the game finally manages to launch in fullscreen, then allowing you to alt-enter in order to play windowed mode in 1080p quality.
Sound
Music in Pure Pool is very casual and relaxing. The background music is mostly jazz, which made me realize I actually liked it without being a huge jazz fan. The music gives you a very relaxed and casual experience, it fits perfectly with the relaxed atmosphere of the game.
Sound effects of the pool cues and balls sound very realistic, it’s almost like you’re there. The balls make different sounds depending on how hard you hit them and every sound that can possibly be made while playing pool is thought of (even bouncing balls!).
Gameplay
The controls in Pure Pool are good and awkward at the same time. The menu is very hard to navigate through as it doesn’t really like your mouse, it’s best to navigate through it using the arrow keys and backspace/enter key. The escape key also doesn’t do anything, it would be nice if it canceled the sub menu and went back to the previous one, instead you’re stuck with backspace.
When you finally start to play, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with the rest of the controls. The most of them are easy and straight forward, but the camera control doesn’t feel responsive at all. The camera is controlled with your mouse, but by the time the camera stops, you’re already past the point you wanted to go. As for the other controls: you can fine aim (very slow cue movement), put a spin on the ball, place/pick up the ball (if the situation calls for it), stand up for a better view and shoot (by dragging back the cue and then pushing it forward with your mouse). Potting the winning ball also rewards you with a very satisfying slow-mo cam of your shot that even shows chalk chipping off from the tip of the cue!
The camera also fails you when trying to perform bank shots. You only see where you aim, so the “helping line” of where your ball goes is very difficult, even impossible to see when trying to perform tricky bank shots, making you fire completely blind. The camera system would be perfect if it was more responsive and allowed you to look around when aiming the cue.
As for the rest, the game is very enjoyable when you finally manage to win against an amateur bot (which are really hard even though they’re amateurs). Online play is something else however, the game suffers from a lot of connection issues, so it’s very hard to play a full game without disconnecting from the lobby.
Other than casually playing vs bots or players, there are tournaments. There’s currently a 9-ball and 8-ball tournament, allowing you to choose between your favorite game. You can also play against the bot of one of your friends! As you play, the game generates a bot of you depending on how much time it takes to make a shot, accuracy and faults. This bot is very accurate to your actual play style and will play a lot like you do. The developers are also considering making more game modes in the form of DLC, one of these might include snooker! You’ll finally be able to feel like Ronnie O’Sullivan as you decimate your opponents with max scores!
The game also features accolades and a leveling system. Various challenges like potting a ball from very far away or winning a game without faults awards you an accolade. These give you bonus exp in order to level up. The leveling system simply allows you to show off your rank and skill to other players, further than that it serves little purpose.
Conclusion
Pure Pool is a super realistic and casual pool game where you can show off your skills against online players or test them against the professional bots. It currently still has a lot of issues so maybe it’s best to wait a while until most of them are resolved. Other than that, it’s a very enjoyable and satisfying game whenever you win a game against players or pesky bots!
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Seems to stand up well against other Pool games I’ve played after reading your review. Good job!