| Virtual Pool 3 | |
|---|---|
 Windows box art | |
| Developer(s) | Celeris |
| Publisher(s) | Digital Mayhem (PC) XS Games (PS) |
| Series | Virtual Pool |
| Platform(s) | Windows PlayStation |
| Release | WindowsPlayStation
|
| Genre(s) | Sports (cue sports) |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Virtual Pool 3 is a 3D, first-person sports video game that simulates various cue sports, developed and released for Windows and PlayStation by Celeris. The game features 15 pool disciplines, snooker, and two varieties of carom billiards.
The Virtual Pool series made its debut in 1995 with the release by Interplay of Virtual Pool. Interplay went on to produce Virtual Pool 2 in November 1997, adding improvements including enhanced physics modeling and a handful of new game types. Virtual Pool Hall followed in December 1999, introducing snooker to the series. Virtual Pool Hall suffered from poor opponent AI and a lack of a pool hall atmosphere.[ citation needed ]
Initially, Virtual Pool 3 was released as a retail boxed version endorsed by champion pool player Jeanette Lee. The latest version is available on the Celeris site as a download and is supported via downloadable update patches. [3]
A Dreamcast version was referenced in the official Sega press kit for E3 2000 but did not materialise. [4] [5]
The game can be played in single-player mode against the computer (Career Mode, Tournament or Quick Play), or against other human opponents on the Internet or locally through a LAN.
The game features eight billiard venues the player can choose from, which include six pool tables, a snooker table, and a carom table for cushion caroms or three-cushion billiards. There are three preset table configurations available for all games (championship, professional, and amateur), but any table can be customized for roll speed and pocket dimensions.
Twenty-one variations are featured in the game, and most options simulate popular games including nine-ball, eight-ball, and straight pool, as well as snooker, and three-cushion, the inclusion of uncommon variations such as cowboy pool, Honolulu, and bowliards allows players to try out game for which finding real-life opponents might be difficult.
The disciplines featured in Virtual Pool 3 are as it follows:
Players use the GameSpy Arcade client to access the game's main lobby and then create or join virtual rooms where they can participate in online play.
The Virtual International Players Ladder (VIPLadder) is a perpetual league for players of games in the Virtual Pool franchise. [6] Players compete in matches to earn points from other VIP Ladder players. As players earn points, they move up the ladder.
Besides other normal leagues ending with playoffs [7] (like the Eight-ball Pub League), [8] there are several regular weekly online tournaments that every player can attend. Each tournament usually takes a few hours, but some more prestigious events such as the Virtual 9 Ball World Championships and the Virtual Snooker World Championships can take several days or weeks to complete. [9]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 85% [10] |
| Metacritic | 82% [11] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| GameSpot | 8.7/10 [12] |
| IGN | 8.5/10 [13] |
| PC Zone UK | 8.5/10 [14] |
| PC Gamer | 8.5/10 [15] |
Virtual Pool 3 was mostly very well received by critics, with an average score of 85% at GameRankings , [10] which makes it the highest rated billiards game on Windows, as of 2007. industry standard video game aggregator website Metacritic also scored the game well, at another franchise high rating of 82 out of 100. [11] [16]
GameSpot rated the game highly, with an 8.7 out of 10 rating, particularly citing the "gorgeous" visuals as well as the "better ball physics and better online support" than the previous titles in the series. [12] However, GameSpot did find that it was "disappointing" that the players were (as with all Virtual Pool games) invisible instead of fully rendered. GameSpot's review concluded that "you can't find a pool sim that looks and plays as much like the real thing as Virtual Pool 3 does." [12]
IGN were also positive about the game; scoring it an 8.5 out of 10, [13] calling Virtual Pool 3 "really a great game", and saying the "great gameplay that will keep you entertained for a long time since", and "it's a whole lot of fun". However, IGN also said that Virtual Pool 3 "won't replace the real thing". [13]
Virtual Pool 4 , the sequel to the game announced on July 6, 2012, [17] and was released on 15 August 2012 worldwide for Windows. The game features many graphical and feature updates from Virtual Pool 3. An online-only version of the game was released in 2015 that features online tournaments and rankings, similar to Virtual Pool 3.
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
Eight-ball is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls. The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.
English billiards, called simply billiards in the United Kingdom and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two cue balls and a red object ball are used. Each player or team uses a different cue ball. It is played on a billiards table with the same dimensions as one used for snooker and points are scored for cannons and pocketing the balls.
Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to pocket as many object balls as possible without playing a foul. The game was the primary version of pool played in professional competition until it was superseded by faster-playing games like nine-ball and eight-ball in the 1980s.
Golf billiards is a pocket billiards game usually played for money. Unlike the majority of such games, it allows more than two people to play without compromises or rule changes. The game borrows from the outdoor game of golf, which is historically related to the cue sports. It is usually played on 10-foot or 12-foot snooker tables as their size and structure are more appropriate. In 2006 the Billiard Congress of America commented it was more popular than snooker in the United States.
Carom billiards, also called French billiards and sometimes carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France.
Russian pyramid, also known as Russian billiards, is a form of billiards played on a large billiard table with narrow pockets. It is played across Russia and several former Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries. In the West, the game is known as pyramid billiards, or simply pyramid.
A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth, and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole thing elevated above the floor. More specific terms are used for specific sports, such as snooker table and pool table, and different-sized billiard balls are used on these table types. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the rails, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".
Four-ball billiards or four-ball carom is a carom billiards game, played on a pocketless table with four billiard balls, usually two red and two white, one of the latter with a spot to distinguish it. Each player is assigned one of the white balls as a cue ball. A point is scored when a shooter's cue ball caroms on any two other balls in the same shot. Two points are scored when the shooter caroms on each of the three object balls in a single shot. A carom on only one ball results in no points, and ends the shooter's inning.
The following is a glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports disciplines: carom billiards referring to the various carom games played on a billiard table without pockets; pool, which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; and snooker, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sport culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also games such as English billiards that include aspects of multiple disciplines.
Virtual Pool 64 is a 3D first-person sports simulation video game that was developed by American studio Celeris and released for the Nintendo 64 by Crave Entertainment on December 17, 1998, in North America, and in Europe on February 26, 1999. The game features simulations of 11 forms of pool. It is part of the "Virtual Pool" game franchise, which also includes the PC games Virtual Pool, Virtual Pool 2, Virtual Pool Hall and Virtual Pool 3. The game has been simultaneously lauded as "a top-notch simulation" and criticized as dull, lacking both player incentive and engaging characters.
Pool Paradise is a 2004 pocket billiards video game, developed by Awesome Studios, and published by Ignition Entertainment, released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. The game is the fourth game to be endorsed by professional snooker and pool player Jimmy White.
Five-pin billiards or simply five-pins or 5-pins, is today usually a carom billiards form of cue sport, though sometimes still played on a pocket table. In addition to the customary three balls of most carom games, it makes use of a set of five upright pins (skittles) arranged in a "+" pattern at the center of the table. The game is popular especially in Italy and Argentina, but also in some other parts of Latin America and Europe, with international, televised professional tournaments. It is sometimes referred to as Italian five-pins or Italian billiards, or as simply italiana. A variant of the game, goriziana or nine-pins, adds additional skittles to the formation. A related pocket game, with larger pins, is played in Scandinavia and is referred to in English as Danish pin billiards, with a Swedish variant that has some rules more similar to the Italian game.
Jimmy White's 2: Cueball is a snooker and pool video game developed by Awesome Developments and published by Virgin Interactive as a sequel to Jimmy White's 'Whirlwind' Snooker. It was originally released in 1999 for Windows and Dreamcast. A PlayStation version was released in 2000 in Europe and North America, with Bay Area Multimedia handling distribution for the latter territory. Archer Maclean, the designer of the original game, led the development team. The game includes mini-games connected with a pub setting. A Game Boy Color version of the game was released in 2000. A sequel to Cueball, called Jimmy White's Cueball World, was released in Europe for the PC in 2001. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with the PC and Dreamcast versions faring better than the PlayStation port.
Virtual Pool is a 3D, first-person sports simulation video game series with computer simulations of cue sports which was developed by Celeris. The games in the series simulate pool, snooker and carom billiards. The Virtual Pool series focuses on accurate simulation and improving the player's ability to play the sport in real life. Virtual Pool releases are sold with a money back guarantee to improve a player's external game.
Pool Revolution: Cue Sports is a sports simulation video game video game published by Hudson Soft for the Wii's WiiWare service. The game simulates a variety of cue sports.
Carom billiards and pool are two types of cue sports or billiards-family games, which as a general class are played with a stick called a cue which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiard table bounded by rubber cushions attached to the confining rails of the table.
Virtual Pool 2 is a 3D, first-person sports simulation video game developed by Celeris and released by VR Sports on behalf of Interplay Productions in 1997. It is the third release of the Virtual Pool franchise of computer simulations of pool games developed by Celeris. VP2 is the second main series title in the Virtual Pool series, and would later be released alongside Virtual Pool 1.
Virtual Pool Hall is a sports simulation video game developed Celeris and published by Interplay Entertainment as an entry in the Virtual Pool franchise, an improvement and sequel to Virtual Pool 2 and PC sequel to Virtual Pool 64. The game was initially released on PC in December 1999. Pool Hall is the first game in the Virtual Pool series to have playable Snooker in addition to the regular pool gamemodes.