World Snooker Championship Season 2007-2008

Can there be a pastime less deserving of being branded a 'sport' than snooker? It's not like it demands its participants be in peak physical condition, is it? Maybe this is why there's a pool or snooker table in practically every public house in Britain – no matter how bulbous your beer belly might be, you can always indulge in a game of billiards and feel like a proper sportsman as a result.

Wisely recognizing that the general public seems to have an affection for the odd game of snooker, developer Blade Interactive has decided that it's high time DS players were given the opportunity to carry around a virtual table in their rucksacks, which is a jolly nice thought.

Everything in World Snooker Championship can be controlled using the stylus (although the option to use the D-pad and buttons is still present) and on the whole the control system works well. To aim a shot you simply move the stylus around the screen, which changes the location of your cue.

The helpful 'aiming aid' appears when you place your cue in position. Two trails appear: a white trail shows the proposed trajectory of the cue ball, while its yellow counterpart displays where the ball you're intending to strike will go. This system makes shots a lot easier but it should be noted that it's not 100 per cent assured to grant you the perfect pot. For instance, if you're under pressure in a crucial championship match, the aiming aid may become temperamental – a clever way of representing the pressure an actual player would encounter in the same prickly situation.

When you've decided on the ball you want to strike, you can apply spin and decide on the shot strength (both of these variables can be selected before you wind up for the shot). Then, to perform the strike you simply pull back on the cue using the stylus and then move it forward to connect with the ball.

This is hugely satisfying until you realize that your wrist movement has absolutely no effect on the power of the shot. If you select a weak shot strength on the power gauge prior to grabbing the cue, then it's irrelevant how enthusiastically you move the stylus – the eventual shot will always be a soft one. This is a real shame because it would have been nice to apply shot power 'on the fly' using the touchscreen rather than pre-configuring it.

Still, at least once you've made a shot everything moves and reacts as it should do. Snooker titles succeed or fail by how accurately they recreate the real-world physics involved, and Blade has done a wonderful job in this respect.

Once you're familiarised yourself with the interface, a wide range of game modes await. Despite the fact that there must be tribes deep in the Amazon rainforest, untouched by modern civilization, who know the rules of snooker, Blade Interactive has nevertheless kindly included a comprehensive tutorial mode. In fairness, its inclusion is welcome given that it not only explains the complexities of the control method but also gives handy hints that prove quite beneficial later in the game.

Otherwise, you can swot up on the controls in the Practice mode, play a Friendly Match with no pressure, get stuck in with a Quick Match or simply throw yourself in at the deep end by entering a Championship. There are nine official endorsed competitions for you to attempt. Successful participation not only unlocks the next championship but also professional players such as John Higgins and the legendary Steve Davies, who can then be selected as opponents in other game modes.

It seems to be an unwritten rule that all sports games are more fun when played against a human opponent and that's certainly true here. While the computer players pose a stern challenge, you'll soon tire of them and crave a proper fight. It's a shame then that while World Snooker Championship does contain a two-player mode, you both have to use the same DS console. It surely couldn't have been too hard to include a wireless multiplayer option or even online matches? It's a real missed opportunity.

In terms of presentation, World Snooker Championship is reasonably impressive – at least when it's not moving. The fully three-dimensional table is rendered nicely and the players themselves animate well, but movement around the table is disappointingly jerky, which is a real shame when you consider the recent strides the DS has been confidently taking in the realm of three dimensions. The final nail in the coffin for the 3D mode is the fact that it's actually easier to use the top-down 2D view to place shots. Menus within the game are fairly drab and rough looking, too.

At least the sound fares slightly better. There's a decent amount of speech by a someone we assume to be a professional snooker commentator, but to our untrained ears sounds an awful lot like comic Peter Kay. (Okay, it's actually snooker supremo and BBC pundit John Virgo.) Every snooker eventuality, from a perfect shot to a complete balls-up (no pun intended), is adequately covered with amusing soundbites.

Which brings us to the inevitable concluding paragraph. World Snooker Championship certainly has the content to please hardcore fans of the sport despite some disappointing – and largely needless – shortcomings. Everyone else, however, should perhaps wait for next year's offering, because there's plenty of scope for improvement here.