Rather sensibly, our opponent hides his low-polygon face.
INTRODUCTION
I'm a big snooker and pool fan, yet had not ventured into the world of cue sports on my PS2 until now. Unlike the competing baseball and football or soccer video game franchises, there is currently no real competition from any other snooker sim on the PS2. So, if you want snooker, this is it. The WSC series, developed by Blade Interactive and now published by Sega, has been around for quite a few years on the PS2, with roots back in the PS1 days. I won't be comparing to previous entries in this series because I haven't played them, and this article would be even longer.
The '07 release coincided, unsurprisingly, with the 2007 World Championships. Luckily for John Higgins, he didn't suffer any curse by appearing on the cover of the game. As with the '07 finals, this is not quite a classic but definitely worth your time.
Note: I have not played any of the online or multiplayer aspects of the game, but it does support these (via Gamespy arcade).
GRAPHICS
The graphics can only be described as average for the PS2, and thats being rather generous. The player models are not up to the standard achieved by any of the recent FIFA or Pro Evolution soccer games, for example, where the likenesses are rather impressive. Moreover, those games have to render two dozen fast moving players, not two guys slowly shuffling around a snooker table! Its a shame since all the top players are included in WSC07, their facial resemblence ranging from passable (Dott and Mathews) to laughable (O'Sullivan, Murphy, and most of the others). Theres a feature to create a custom face for your player, but he will never look like you. The animations are OK, but there is little variation. In other words, there is only one canned animation for any situation. Just watch as the two players enter the arena walking in unison, performing identical walk motions. Zombie-like people sit in the crowd, also performing a limited set of animations. But, in the end, its passable. At least the crowd is 3D, not a bunch of 2D cutouts.
The table itself looks quite good, with some nice detailing, and decent reflections off the wooden edges. The cloth is realistically... green, but lacks a little something perhaps. For starters, there is no attempt to add chalk marks as the game progresses -- perhaps some small details like this would've added that extra touch of realism.
The player on the screen goes through the motions of taking the shot, but only after you have set all the various parameters and hit the 'X' button (see 'gameplay' section later). The graphics of the players' cue motion is reasonable, but could've been better. There are also some problems with the position of the cue since it doesn't always match the spin you are putting on the ball, making your deep screw shots look a little funny. Occassionally the cue will go through a ball, but none of these bugs affect the ball physics at all. The player uses a rest (including the spider) when required -- you don't need to select one. Again, this looks pretty good but suffers a few bugs when close to other balls.
One thing that surprised me is the lack of a realistic reflection on the balls. I'm sure the PS3 screenshots I've seen show a nice sharp reflection from the overhead strip lights, but not here on the PS2, where its a dull blury splodge of white. Its not like we're asking for real-time ray-tracing here. It detracts slightly from the look compared to a TV broadcast, where the gleam on the balls really stands out.
The arenas used in the real snooker circuit are reproduced well, and add some variation. It gives an extra buzz when reaching the first round proper of a televised tournament, after scrapping it out in the qualifiers. You see the announcer introduce the event, and you see the TV cameras and other bits of scenery. However, there is some texture tearing around the walls, which is a shame.
Finally, an almost unforgivable omission is the lack of widescreen support in the game. Yep, you read that correct, there's only 4:3 ratio. Again, it makes me wonder whether the graphics engine is actually six years old, back to the days when everyone actually had 4:3 TV sets. I really couldn't play using my TV's stretched mode so I had to stick to 4:3 with wasted black borders on either side.
(Oddly, it looks like the PSP version of the game does support widescreen -- how come they managed it there?).
The framerate is OK but not outstanding. There is a slight slowdown when shots are taken, but its not too bad. And anyway, letting the CPU concentrate on the ball physics was always the right choice (see 'gameplay' section below).
Trying to get on the blue...
SOUND
On the whole, the sound effects are good. The clack of cue against ball, and ball into pocket, is very satisfying. Crowd reaction can sometimes be a little odd, and a few bugs exist where a crowd loop will go on endlessly (surely someone spotted these bugs?).
The referee speaks the scores convincingly, which is a bit more than can be said for the commentary by Virgo, Parrott and Davis. Its not awful, there are a reasonably large array of canned comments, but their use is often at totally inappropriate times. It is great when it really does match the mood of the game, like when you reach the snookers-required stage in a frame, but such cases are soon overshadowed by some totally incorrect comment, when it becomes pure comedy. For example, Steve assures us "he'll go for the green here" -- where the green is a crazy choice in reality. Other examples are when you are criticized for a miss, when in fact you are way ahead in the frame and it doesn't matter. Then, bizarrely, you can be criticized before even breaking off in the first frame -- nothing like a bit of encouragement. After a safety shot, Steve would often moan at how bad my pot attempt was. Sigh, I could list a dozen more.
Anyway, the commentary is usually correct when you put in a good pot or a decent safety, and its pretty cool to hear John Virgo compliment your shot. Its a shame they didn't introduce better algorithms for choosing the commentary clips, or simply get the guys to shut up when they can't say anything reliable. Oh, and for the sake of amusement, yes you can be in the situation where you are playing against Davis whilst he simultaneously manages to be in the commentary box, the cheeky swine!
GAMEPLAY
This is what really matters in a snooker game. Up to now we've talked about the negatives, but ultimately they do not spoil this tremendous game. The one thing they got right when making World Snooker Championship 2007 is the translation of real snooker into a realistic, fun and challenging video game.
I recall playing a ZX Spectrum game called 'Steve Davis Snooker', about 20 years ago I guess. It had a top-down view, and slightly flaky ball physics. But, it was dead good for its time. Like most modern web-based Flash snooker games it provided you with three ways to control your shot: cue power, shot angle, and ball spin. We just accepted this was the 'right' way to simulate snooker on a computer. But, where would the cue ball actually end up? How would my spin affect the balls? Who knows: you had to hit and hope. You could only dream of break-building anything above 3 balls in a row.
In many ways those snooker games are harder than playing real snooker. Even an amateur snooker player instinctively has a feel for the table, they know where the cue ball will go after they apply spin and push though with the cue. Their mind is on the pot, but also the position of the next, and then the next. OK, a pro has much more control and better positional play than you or I, developing the balls to build that frame-winning break. They can delicately bend the cue ball to escape a snooker. They can get the cue ball tight on the baulk cushion -- a critical skill. These are the things that make snooker great, and these are the things that WSC captures well, using a unique set of indicators.
The key to the gameplay in WSC07 are the aiming arrows and cue ball position indicator. The first show the predicted direction of the cue ball and object ball. Surely that makes the game too easy, I hear you cry? Not quite. The length of the arrows won't reach the pocket on anything except easy shots. Also, it does not take into account either ball hitting another ball, which means you have to engineer that great positional shot, pushing a ball into place, or arcing the cue ball in and out of baulk. Its a great feeling when you pull off those shots. Note, these arrows aren't always straight, they will bend if your cue power and spin generates it.
The cue ball position indicator is a shaded disc which shows where the cue ball should end up after the shot. Again, it does not take into account other balls. Moreover, the radius of the disc increases as the shot becomes less predictable. It works very well, allowing you to get good position with simple shots, but making you really sweat when you get out of position. Just like the real thing. I've read that previous versions in the WSC series did not have the cue ball positioning feature; this alone is reason enough to buy this version ahead of any previous ones, even if you see them in the bargain bin. Oh, and presumably the players' face textures were even worse in the previous versions...
I forgot to mention that you can also raise the butt of the cue, enabling swerve shots, and even trick shots where the cue ball jumps across the table. If you attempt a particularly tricky shot, or one which is beyond your player's expertise as described by his stats (see later), then the help indicators disappear and you're left on your own to sort it out.
The triangle button flips from the 3D view of the table and a top-down view. You tend to use both views, but relying on the top-down view for really accurate lining up. Theres also a cue-level view and another zoom mode, but I rarely used either. The R2 button can be held down to introduce fine-tuning to any of the other modes, which all works quite nicely, unless you have trouble dealing with the PS2 shoulder buttons at the same time as the D-pad buttons.
On a slight negative point, I'd say long shots are a little too easy, especially when the object ball is nearer the pocket, since the arrows help you too much. The helper arrow should shorten for these, but it does not. Hence, when out of position on the black or pink I would often take a sneaky baulk colour long shot to continue a break. Conversely, if the object ball is further from the pocket (closer to the cue ball) the shot can become unrealistically difficult, since the helper arrows stop way short of the pocket. I tended to build breaks avoiding those shots. Another small negative point, you often find yourself switching between the 2 camera view points rather a lot, and between aiming/power modes. Sometimes this juggling can become a little frustrating although I can't think of an easy fix they could've used.
Just to clarify, you never need to select to use the rest, it is done automatically. This works well, and cleverly the aiming line shortens to represent a more difficult shot. Simple, and effective. This is used again when a 'pressure' shot is attempted, e.g. a frame-clincher. A great way to simulate those Crucible nerves!
The ball physics are simply excellent. There is little to fault here, it just feels very realistic. The spin, cushions, swerve, everything. You can even see the cue ball jump off the table when (trick shots are allowed). Probably the most impressive aspect to me was the balls physics around the pockets. Balls catch cushions, wobble in the jaws, or drop at the very last moment. Just like real snooker, those little things can make or break your match.
There are a couple of other shot types which are not entirely realistic. It seems possible to do wafer-thin cuts a little too easily. This trick is employed by the CPU players rather often, to leave you in exactly the same position as you just left them! Secondly, I gave up putting too much side-spin on the ball, as it soon becomes uncontrollable (perhaps my stats are too low?). Thirdly, the middle pockets seem a little too tricky to pot into.
The CPU players sometimes pull off rather unlikely long shots. I suppose in recent years the tendancy for the top players to go for long shots has indeed increased, but it can be frustrating to put the cue ball safe only to see CPU Ronnie take a wonder shot and go on to take the frame. On the whole, however, the CPU players do make realistic mistakes too -- a rather important aspect in a game where you can spend a lot of time watching your opponent knocking in balls. Incidentally, you don't have to watch all the CPU player's going through their motions, theres an option to skip straight through to the final ball positions each time. Replays of the last 5 shots can be watched, and saved.
There are surely a few other shot situations I could criticize, but these would start to sound pretty fussy, and this is proof in itself that the game manages to reproduce most shots really well.
The main game mode simulates a championship season, though you might want to try the tutorial mode first. The tutorial simply lets you play a frame on your own, but with Jon Virgo suggesting which shots to take, and how to think about cue ball position and so on. It works really well. The championship mode allows you to choose realistic numbers of frames for each match, or a shortened version where, for example, qualifiers are decided in a single frame, and championships proper start as best-of-3.
(Tip: your odds of winning are actually better if you play more frames, not relying on single frames to get through qualifying).
This looks like a risky shot choice, time to ask the coach!
As you win matches you are awarded money and points, which improve your world ranking. Your points can be assigned to various player stats such as potting skill, cue power, spin, skill with rest, performance under pressure etc. Adding to potting skill will lengthen the aiming arrows in the game. The stats are a nice touch, and simulate your player's improvement as he plays more. However, I always added to the potting and positioning stats, since it seems obvious they are the most important ones. You can also unlock special cues and other extras. Another nice feature is the availability of a coach at any stage of a match, who can suggest an attacking or defensive shot.
Aside from the main snooker part of the game, there is an equivalent pool section included, with its own array of well-known (?) players and venues. 8-ball and 9-ball are included. I did not play it in depth, but what I did see was well done. The weight of the balls and cue seem to be simulated correctly, having a heavier feel to them. There is also a 'hybid' mode allowing you to construct a season of pool and snooker competitions, but for me the two styles feel too different to mix.
Disc load times are short, and not a problem. Autosave works nicely after each frame (I suppose one could cheat this way...).
VERDICT
4 out of 5
For snooker fans, World Snooker Championship 2007 is a definite BUY. I'm playing this thing every day at the moment, slowly getting into more competitions and improving my stats. We've come a long way since ZX Spectrum Steve Davis Snooker!
I fear that non-snooker fans simply won't 'get' the intricacies of break-building and tactical play in snooker, and could become frustrated watching CPU Ronnie clear-up for the umpteenth time (like in real life). But, they should still enjoy it if they put in the time. The sad fact is that this game could easily have been a 5 out of 5 with a bit more effort. Perhaps these issues will be fixed for '08, although one wonders how many times companies
can release what is essentially the same game every year. OK, this review is long enough, lets not go there.
Note: shop around, I saw it for sale at 19.99 in Game and on Amazon.
For more reviews, check out the Metacritic entry for this game. This game is also available for Playstation 3, Xbox360 and PSP.
