3D Billiards Pool & Snooker Remastered Review

3D Billiards Pool & Snooker Remastered is pretty straightforward and simple. Players can play virtual pool or snooker. While Snooker has a single game mode, players can choose from 8 ball, 9 ball or 10 ball on the pool side of things.

If you’re not familiar with this sport of patience, 8 ball is the most common game where you either have to pocket the solid or stripe balls, while your opponent will use the other one. Once you’ve pocketed your colored ball, you need to pocket the 8 ball to win. 9 and 10 ball are very similar where you need to pocket the balls in order from 1 to 9 (or 10). Snooker is a whole different beast. Here you earn points by potting; by striking object balls with a cue ball and pocket them in one of the six pockets. This is just a brief, quick summary. Feel to read about the rules of snooker if you want to know *everything*.

Although, unlike other gaming pool experiences, shooting feels a bit counterintuitive and some getting used to. Instead of simply using the right joystick, you need to pull the stick by pulling the right stick backward and pressing A to shoot; instead of pushing up on the stick.

After you’ve chosen your game type, you can select your pool cue, ball design, table, avatar, and opponent. None of this really impacts the gameplay, it’s more from an aesthetic perspective. However, as you go through opponents, newly unlocked challengers will get progressively tougher and wiser. For example, the second challenger completely destroyed me when I only had the 8 ball left; some shots were suspiciously cheated though.

Honestly, there isn’t anything inherently wrong here. Although the complete package feels empty, in a way? Lack of gameplay variety and/or additional challenges feels like a missed opportunity to provide players with a complete package for virtual pool or snooker games.

The game looks fine; I mean you can’t really mess up the visuals of a game like this unless you do it on purpose. Character models do look a bit cartoony and as mentioned, there are a few things you can choose to give your game a limited custom styling. The soundtrack is a chill affair, perfect to keep you focused on the task at hand.

3D Billiards Pool & Snooker Remastered is a fun little diversion from more time-consuming games. It’s pretty simple, snooker aside, and while it does take a bit of adjusting to the controls, you’ll find a fun addictive little game. But I can’t help to feel the whole experience is pretty shallow as additional game modes and challenges could’ve made this a more worthwhile investment. There are worst ways to waste money and time.