World Snooker Championship 2008 (2D)

Snooker is one of those games which, when turned into a good video game, can be enjoyable enough for anyone to play - even those who'd struggle to identify Stephen Hendry stuck in a line up of rugby players. But when it's done badly, it's about as dull as watching balls bouncing randomly around a screen. Which is pretty much what it is.

Fortunately, World Snooker Championship 2008 falls into the enjoyable category, although it loses a few gold stars for lacking a little of the atmosphere you'd expect in a world championship.

For while there's an audience in theory in the shape of a static background behind the snooker table, you don't get the whoops and cheers we expect when we've just made a 60 point break. Instead the game is a fairly droll affair with shots calculated using white lines that appear on the table to indicate where a ball is going to end up when hit, and only the basic sound effects of cue meeting cue ball and cue ball hitting coloured ball.

Still, the most important question to address is whether World Snooker Championship manages to authentically and accurately replicate a good old game of ball pocketing. And it does.

Taking control of a disembodied snooker cue, you rotate the cue around the table in order to line up a shot while using the white lines to judge where the ball you're aiming for will go, and '0' to scroll through the balls available to pot.

Pressing '5' then moves you on to a power bar, which you manually move up and down to alter its power. If you want to make life more complicated for yourself, you can also add spin or change the cue's angle on the ball, although those are skills you can master as you go. Particularly good for improving your technique is playing through the game's trick shots and challenges.

More on those in a bit. Meanwhile, a black 'shadow' on the table indicates roughly where the cue ball will end up after taking the shot - a godsend seeing as it's fairly hard to judge otherwise.

The whole control system works very precisely. The top-down visuals aren't the prettiest we've ever seen in a mobile snooker game and there are no fancy bells or whistles, but the game doesn't really need them.

Plus, what it lacks in graphics it makes up for with content. There are a whopping 32 real life snooker players you can choose to play as, and each has his own unique stats. At the start you only get your pick of four that are fairly low in the snooker pecking order, but as you play you work your way up to the likes of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry. Getting there takes a fair bit of hard work too, so there are no complaints that this is a short-lived game.

Added to all the unlockables - and there are awards to win for certain achievements as well as new players - there are the aforementioned trick shots and challenges. The game has seven of each. Trick shots are pretty much as you'd expect - potting a pink ball and a black one in the same shot for instance. While Challenges put you in the shoes of a snooker player at an important part of a match and challenge you to pull off a specific shot.

With all the content, and a solid control system, World Snooker Championship 2008 is very nearly a world champion. It just lacks any stand out features to really elevate it above the crowd.

World Snooker Championship 2008 (2D)

Snooker with all the world champion players present and correct. A solid game with tons to unlock, but it doesn't really have anything that elevates it from good to great
Score
Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.