Another year, another update to the only snooker simulation that is worth even considering. Quite why Sega and Blade bother is beyond me, to be honest, since they could sit back, count the pennies and just forget about snooker for a few years. Its not like there’s a great deal of competition on the shelves, barring a few budget priced cue-’em-ups, so they wouldn’t lose their crown.
But yet, they soldier on. World Snooker Championship 2005 is the latest expedition on to the green baize, and from the outset, smacks of class and polish. The first noticeable change is provided by the camera angles used to present the action. Of course, you can move the camera around the cue ball as you wish when sizing up your shot, but whilst sat down, the camera pans, zooms and tracks the action superbly, and really does look the business. Unfortunately, when an AI opponent is taking a shot, the frame rate seems to drop and lock until the balls have all come to a stop. Quite why, I don’t know, but it scuffs up the polish a little too much to overlook.
When creating your player to take through the career mode (which you’ll probably do to start with), there are now options to set certain attribute scores, such as “power”, “double ability”, “side spin ability” and the like. What’s strange about this is that you can set everything to maximum (or minimum, depending on what it is) and the game lets you get away with it. Of course, you still have to control your own shots, but you have a player who can hit the ball at the maximum power, put it around a corner and then chip it over the remaining two reds to pot the black. In theory. In practice, you can really feel the difference in skill between your perfect player and the likes of the recreated professionals such as Stephen Hendry, who by definition have minor flaws in their game. Obviously, you can set your levels to a fair rating, but why would you’ The fact that you don’t have to win or progress in the tournaments to become a statistically better player is strange, as this would have added longevity and a degree of replayability to the game.
To its credit, World Snooker Championship 2005 is still the best game of snooker that you can take part in without going to a smoky snooker club and playing against the club champion, kebab stains and all. Ball physics are represented accurately, the new optional cueing mode, which sees you using the right analogue stick to control the cue itself – a little like the swing feature that most golf games contain these days – is a welcome addition that is incredibly easy to pick up, but will take some time to master properly. Add this to the full range of tournaments and locations from this year’s real life snooker tour and the ability to play other games such as 9 and 8 ball poll, bar billiards, regular billiards or “Snooker Plus”, and you have the complete package. That isn’t to say that there aren’t a few chalk stains on the cloth, though.
Indeed, a match in World Snooker Championship 2005 can take as long as it would in real life. The ability to skip your AI opponent’s shots is an incredibly welcome one, but there’s still a massive and unfathomable delay after most shots. Getting used to the analogue cueing, I sliced my first break, missed everything and, as the rules state, the referee deemed it a foul. Fair enough. The white ball stopped, I waited for a couple of seconds, the referee stated “Foul”, waited for a few more seconds, blurted out “Four” (the points I’d given away to my opponent) and then the game waited for another five seconds or so before the AI opponent slowly got up to address the table. All in all, that was around twenty seconds of absolutely nothing happening. Do that three times, you’ve wasted an entire minute. Had this been a problem with the previous games in the series, I may not have noticed it as much, but it hasn’t made an appearance before. The previous editions all zipped along fairly smoothly, with the progression from your shot to your opponent’s shot and back again being as smooth as you could ask for.
And believe it or not, it stops you from playing more than a couple of matches in WSC2005 at a time. I barely completed a match before turning the game off in frustration every time I tried to sit down and play a few tournaments for the sake of the review. Maybe I’m a bit impatient, and I just want to get on with my next attempt at curving the ball around six cushions, but having the chance to review a page or two of the game manual after each shot is just a pain in the backside.
And this is what sums up the game for me. The flow of the action is broken up every time control of the table is passed over, and World Snooker Championship 2005 is a bit of a missed opportunity. Blaze were already at the top of the tree when it came to snooker simulations, but this feels like a bridge too far, so to speak. I can’t recommend this year’s edition over last year’s, because in my opinion, last year’s is smoother and simply more fun to play. By all means, pick up WSC2005 if you’re a snooker fan who doesn’t already own a previous edition, but if you’re still playing the tour from this time last year, a rental is advisable.
