Review: Virtual Pool Mobile (iPhone)

Virtual Pool Mobile, from the makers of popular PC pool series Virtual Pool, have somehow managed to squeeze the excellent physics and rudimentary graphics of the aforementioned into the confines of the iPhone, whilst retaining all the control and playability.

The control scheme is one of the rare occasions where the touch screen is put to perfect use. Moving your finger anywhere above the cueball adjusts your aim and viewing angle, while shooting can either be done from a power meter/button press or from pulling back and striking forward the cue yourself. The latter is my preference, allowing for more synaptic feedback and consequently feeling like a real game of pool.


The campaign mode sees you challenging progressively more difficult AI opponents with bizarre descriptions and cheesy stock photographs across different pool halls, before eventually meeting Curly in the deciding grudge match. Curly's videos, presented after beating the head honcho of each pool hall, are hilarious throwbacks to the early days of FMV in games that add a welcome kitsch, preventing the game from coming off as po-faced like some other straight-laced simulation games might do.

VPM is an addictive timewaster that suits the mobile platform. I would love to see some online play in an updated version, but regardless this is an essential purchase for anyone still ambivalent towards iPhone gaming.

Celeris website - Wikipedia

Back Again

New Year's Resolution: write more.

Left 4 Dead is a phenomenal game and is pretty much the only title I play at home now. Valve have taken co-op - usually an add-on or ticked box in other titles - and expanded it into an entire game design. It works so well that it's alarming that no-one else had thought of it before. Granted, this type of game only really work playing with other humans with headsets as the erratic bot behaviour proves, so perhaps it has been a long time coming.

There's no other game I can think of that has so many unscripted (or perhaps semi-scripted) delights and the game continues to surprise at every playthrough: the emergence of alternative routes, debating and testing strategies for survival, "special" infected spawning at random places, all contribute to some of the most dynamic gameplay yet seen outside of a PC.

I remember one particular playthrough clearly: in the Blood Harvest episode my team tried hiding in the two cupboards on the ground floor in the house in the finale. We ended up getting ambushed by a smoker and a hunter though. Next attempt we decided to try hiding on the mezzanine level of the huge barn next to the house, and it worked a treat.

I haven't even mentioned 8 player versus mode yet.