Developer: Gameloft
Genre: Sports
Price: $7.99 ($1.29 7 Day Rental)
Store Description: “Challenge a host of unique characters in the most entertaining 3d pool game on mobile phones!”
Portrait/Landscape: Landscape only.

Gameplay Footage:

Review:

Oh, how I love pool. It’s just a great game. How many games are there out there where you can sit around with some friends and smack things with a stick? Yeah, yeah - Baseball, whatever. Try playing Baseball in a bar.

This is not the first time pool has been made into a video game. Every developer house makes a pool game at some point, so you can find one for pretty much every platform. Typically, these games either suck horribly or are near perfect. It’s apparently somewhat hard to make mediocre pool.

I’m happy to say that Midnight Pool 3d manages to avoid the horrible/mediocre range entirely - It’s quite easily the best pool game I’ve played.

Everything is just done exactly as it should be. The graphics are bananas, the soundtrack is above decent, and they give you the option to play the game pretty much however you see fit.

The graphics are what really impressed me first about this game, especially as it’s running on a mobile platform. It’s no DS or PSP, but it looks damn good. The camera pans around the environment smoothly, and shadows are displayed well. The frame rate could be a wee bit better, but I’m not complaining. The only downside to the whole 3d aspect is that it seems to devour the battery, but we may be imagining things.

While there aren’t very many times where music is played during the game, they managed to score “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd as the game’s theme. Outside of the title screen, the only other time you’ll hear music is during the character intro screens, which feature a handful of famous guitar riffs. Be it to free up more processing power or in hopes of not annoying the player, theres no music during gameplay. No complaints here - It’s actually nice to hear the balls clacking together. Some players may prefer music at all times, though.

The game’s theme gets a bit hokey at times. It’s all set around a biker bar theme; all the games are played in bars, and the characters are straight out of any Hollywood movie featuring a biker bar (Sheriff type, Female Bartender type, Hardcore Biker Dude type, etc). It fits, I suppose - people wouldn’t look at the theme and go “Hey! They don’t play pool in bars! I refuse to play this!” I personally think that something involving Space Ninjas would have been better. Or Food. Food that plays pool. Awesome.

The thing that really makes this game is that it lets you play a number of different ways. You can play 8-Ball (US/UK) or 9-Ball. Don’t like the aiming lines? You can turn them off. Rather the camera was overhead (i.e Yahoo! Pool), instead of from the player’s perspective? You can switch back and forth on the fly. (You do that with the “Previous Song” side key, by the way - That took me a few to figure out.)

There are 4 game modes: Instant Play, Arcade Mode, Story Mode, and Challenges.

Instant Play is exactly what it sounds like - You click once, and it throws you into the pool room with preselected characters, difficulties, and environments. There wasn’t much to explore, so I didn’t spend a lot of time here.

Arcade mode allows you to pick your difficulty, character, opponent, and environment. You can also play local 2 player here. We’ve spent a good amount of time screwing around with multiplayer, and it seems to work exactly as it should. No net play support, so you’ll have to have some friends close by to try it.

In Story Mode, you create a profile, select a character, and then travel across the US building your reputation. At the beginning of each match, you place a winner-takes-all bet. At the end of matches, you can accept Challenges from your opponent to help earn more money. The first few opponents you’re put up against in Story Mode are dumber than a bag of sucks, but they quickly become more advanced.

Challenge Mode mixes it up a bit. Balls are laid out in varying patterns, and you’re given the task of sinking certain balls (often in certain orders) without touching certain marked balls. I’m terrible at trick shots, so I didn’t get very far down the list. However, Challenge mode will teach you how to do some pretty neat maneuvers.

Pulling of these maneuvers can be a bit tricky at times, especially for new comers. While the early computer opponents are forgiving, they expect you to figure out the game’s physics fairly quickly to pull off some of the challenges. You’re able to angle the stick and set the cue ball spin by hopping into the advanced aim mode (Upper Left Soft Key). Unfortunately, this was all a bit over my head. Fortunately, the challenges are all completely optional, and there is no penalty for failing.

The games only fault is in its lack of creativity - While it’s an outstanding pool game, it’s still .. a pool game.

Summary: Best. Pool. Game. Ever.

Score: 9/10