I am a truly terrible pool player. In over two years of pickup games at the pool table in the student lounge, I think I’ve won once.

But I like the game — the strategy of choosing the shot, the careful lining up of the angle and spin, the satisfying clack of the balls, and the euphoric rush on the rare occasion that my shot goes down. And the happy hour specials.

The simulation wizards over at Celeris have somehow managed to transplant the whole experience — minus the happy hour specials — onto the Pocket PC. This is hands down the most gorgeously immersive PPC game that I have played. It’s just like playing real pool, only your device doesn’t point and snigger when you scratch. Click past the jump for lots more details and eye-candy!

Setup

Installation is the standard piece of cake. Download and run the .exe desktop installer, then supply the registration code provided on purchase to unlock all the game modes. The game file is big, about 11MB, but trust me: it’s worth it. Storage is cheap, and you don’t really need all of those programs you never use, anyway. Every byte goes into making Virtual Pool look like a painting and run like silk.

Getting Started

The home screen presents you with a choice of Career Play, Quick Play, Settings, About, Help, and Quit. Quick Play is a great time-killer, giving you the option of playing against another human (by the pass-the-PPC method) or computer opponents of varying styles and skill levels. In Career Play, you start as a nearly broke garage shark, challenging other players and winning money until you eventually reach the big high-stakes showdown.

Before you dive in, it’s not a bad idea to actually look at the very useful Help section, which explains the controls and the rules for the numerous pool variations you can choose from. Yep, there are six different pool games built in: 6 Ball, 8 Ball, 9 Ball, 10 Ball, Rotation, and Straight. Any one of these in a simple player vs. computer format would have driven many screens to ruin, but with all of the options in Virtual Pool Mobile, this game has almost endless replay value.

Quick Play

Pick your opponent (practice, another human, or one of the computer players), location (limited to those you have unlocked in Career Play), game type, and match goal (1-15 games). Then rack ‘em!

This is why I love my Axim. Sure, Virtual Pool will still look nifty on a QVGA screen, but on VGA the graphics are nothing short of stunning. Also, while the game can be played using only buttons, the interaction is much more fluid, and gave me much better control, if the stylus is used. In short, Virtual Pool is an awesome demonstration of what a PPC can do, and I can report from personal experience that it will turn heads and drop jaws.

Play is easy and intuitive, especially using the stylus. When you have ball in hand, simply tap the "Move Ball" button and then drag the ball across the table, checking its position by switching to one of the many other view modes such as overhead. The game automatically switches to Aim/Shoot mode after the ball is placed. Tap and drag on the screen to virtually swing the cue around to line up the shot. Then, select the white tip of the cue and drag to add spin. Finally, tap the wood part of the handle and drag it forward and back to shoot.

With only a little practice, I had as much or more control over my shots — angle, spin, velocity — as I ever did on a real table. Any shot that’s possible in the real world is possible in Virtual Pool, and thanks to the top-flight physics engine, the balls will react identically. Practice mode will trace ball paths before they are struck, and the handy replay feature let me gloat over, excuse me, analyze, a particularly brilliant/lucky shot. Although I haven’t been back to the table in the student lounge, I’m pretty sure that I’ll return as a better player thanks to Virtual Pool.

Career Play

The goal in career play is to build up enough cash to take on Curly, the king of the pool sharks, in a high-stakes match at his beach house. The game allows for multiple careers to be saved, and considering that there are six different flavors of pool to choose from with easy, medium, and hard difficulty levels for each, that flexibility is essential.

Your player must work his or her way up through six locations. Beating the boss at each pool den unlocks the next spot. Of course, you don’t arrive with enough dough to challenge the boss, so you have to take down some of the other players to build up funds. Go up against the boss and lose, and you’ll be haunting the joint for a while to scrape together the stake again.

Curly pops up in a short video to introduce each location and maybe toss a few tips your way. There are more than a dozen players at every location, each with a colorful nickname and short bio that drops hints about their skill and style of play. While the non-boss players at each spot are roughly equal in expertise, picking the right person to challenge at the right time for the right bet adds a fun element of strategy to the game.

The degree of detail here is fantastic. Celeris could have gotten away with a lot less, but the amount of imagination and care that went into designing all these characters really takes the game to the next level. And although I haven’t made it to the beach house yet, the difficulty curve so far as I advance through the locations seems to be one more thing Celeris got right.

Graphics and Sound

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the graphics in Virtual Pool are eye-poppingly gorgeous. Details, textures, light and shadow — it’s all there and glorious. The most amazing aspect of the graphics, which can’t be shown in screenshots, is how fluidly they move as the viewpoint changes in three dimensions. Celeris has made fully realized and utterly immersive locations that deserve the name of virtual reality. On a three-inch screen, that is truly a remarkable feat.

I wish I could gush over the sound, as well, and with all the excellence on display I don’t mean to be disparaging when I say that the music is fine. It’s appropriately atmospheric but gets a bit repetitive. Turn in on, turn it off, it makes no difference to me.

Conclusion

This is one of the most perfectly executed Pocket PC games I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to think of a feature that is missing or an area where the developers have cut corners. Of all the pool games out there, this is without question the best. Virtual Pool Mobile can be completely summed up as a simulation that actually simulates. Anyone with the slightest interest in pool won’t be disappointed.

Vital Stats

You can buy Virtual Pool Mobile for Palm, Pocket PC, or Smartphone for $19.95 at the new-and-improved JAMM Store. If you purchase before October 22, enter code "NEWJAMM" to get 20% off!

In addition to the platforms listed above, Celeris sells three versions for Symbian and a special VGA edition for the Axim x50v/x51v, which is $24.95.

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