Midnight Pool - WiiWare review

Although Midnight Pool is very far from being the worst game ever made, it encapsulates the worst of everything on Wii. First off, it’s a Flash game. You can play exactly the same game for free online at any number of portals, and by the same game we mean exactly the same game without the rubbish trimmings that add absolutely nothing to the experience.

The second thing is unforgiveable: it incorporates motion controls pointlessly. There’s enough of a connection between what you do with the remote and what you do when you’re swinging a racquet, jabbing a fist or bowling a ball for those things to make more sense with motion controls than when pushing a button. Now imagine playing pool. Does that seem even vaguely similar to jabbing a remote at a screen? No, no, a thousand times no. It doesn’t ruin the game, but it hinders playing it – particularly as it’s very keen on precision, so you’ll frequently have to attempt shots a few times because the pointer went off the screen for a second.

Apart from that, the basic ball-knocking isn’t too shabby, and at least you get nine-ball as well as UK and US eight-ball variants, so if you desperately need a pool game then this has to be a consideration. Gameloft’s usual assortment of nonsense goes along with it (who’d have thought that pro pool players were marine biologists and lawyers looking to prove something to their families?), but that’s easily ignored. If only it had the option to turn the rubbish motion controls off.

Nov 6, 2008