Snooker, whilst a fairly niche sport, is one that tends to be recreated in digital form as a game on most platforms these days. Snooker games have long been available on the PC and consoles as real, in-depth simulations of the sport. Mobile versions, however, have always been scarce, and when they are available, tend to be much more arcade than simulation.
This is where International Snooker 2012 steps in. It’s one of the best mobile recreations of the sport available — but it’s not without its flaws. Lets give it a spin after the jump.
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Quick Overview
International Snooker 2012 markets itself as a total snooker sim for iOS. You can play in real-world locations, and in a large number of tournaments as part of a rolling, year-to-year career mode. All the world’s pros are unfortunately absent from the game — presumably down to licensing — but that’s forgivable. You can jump in and just play a quick game if you like, and no matter what game mode you choose, a comprehensive set of statistics are kept which are interesting to go through once you’ve played for a while. The game also boasts a competitive online multiplayer mode and Game Center achievements.
The main menu of IS 2012.
Gameplay
When taking a shot, controls are very intuitive. To rotate your cue around the cue ball you simply swipe the screen, and you can adjust the speed at which the cue rotates by swiping higher or lower on the screen. Higher swipes are great to quickly aim in a general direction, then lower swipes are used for precision, and carefully lining up your shot. It’s awesome, and is a great example of the advantages of touch screen gaming.
The tournaments in the game are quite in-depth.
Shot power is adjusted with a power bar on the right, and to add spin to the ball, there’s an indicator at the top left that you can drag a finger over to adjust. Guides appear on the table to show you what direction your cue ball will travel after impact with the target ball, and a slightly longer guideline will show you where your target ball will go.
A bit of an issue I had almost immediately was that the guides that appeared on the table, whilst dynamic, didn’t really change that much according to the difficulty of the shot. Generally, the tighter the angle, the more difficult the shot is and the shorter the guides should be – but I found that sometimes shots that would be near impossible to hit right in a real game of snooker, were all too easy to nail in this game.
The graphics and presentation of the game are excellent.
Once you’re lined up and have your spin and power set up, there’s a simple button to tap to perform the shot. I’ve played snooker games on other platforms where to take your shot, you have to pull your mouse/analog stick/finger on the screen back, then forward at the desired speed to take your shot. The issue I found with the latter control method is that the games never seemed to interpret velocity very well — to make a power shot, I’d launch my mouse forward almost smashing into my lamp, and the ball would still barely make it to the other end of the table. Others may have had different experiences, and you could argue that a simple button to take the shot doesn’t create a very good simulation of the game, but I certainly prefer the method Big Head Games have taken here.
The birds-eye view can be useful in certain situations.
When it comes to the AI characters, whilst varying in difficulty, they seem to be programmed on a russian roulette style model; they’ll play shot after shot, and depending on the difficulty of the AI, have a “1 in x” chance of missing or not. They’d hit perfect shot after perfect shot, then all of a sudden take a shot and completely miss, as if they’d just let their three-year-old son take a go. It isn’t a massive issue, but it seems like a bit of a cop-out so the devs could avoid programming intelligent AI.
Sound Effects
Sound is essential to a simulation experience, but it’s a little hit-and-miss here. The trademark “clunk” of two snooker balls colliding sounds mostly accurate, but it’s almost like the balls weigh three times as much as they should — it’s a bit deep sounding. Audience clapping is fine, and the frequency of when they clap is limited to difficult/important shots, which adds a nice bit of realism.
There’s also the real voice of Michaela Tabb, a widely recognised referee, doing the voice-overs, which makes up for the lacklustre ball sounds. Unfortunately however, there’s no in-game commentary — but for an iOS game, it’s unfair to call that the same kind of minus it would be had this been a console game.
Graphics & Presentation
In-game graphics are good for an iOS title — frame rates are smooth, there’s some dynamic lighting going on, nothing mind-blowing but certainly nothing bad — apart from one glaring omission, the player models. I was hoping floating cues and invisible referees were a thing of the past. I mean, I’m almost positive certain snooker titles on the PS1 had player models. I wish I could assume this was done to save the frame rate, but there are too many graphic intensive games on iOS that run brilliantly for that to be a reasonable excuse.
The TV camera angle is great, but the game doesn’t feature player models.
When it comes to the menus in the game, you can tell Big Head Games certainly aren’t UI designers — but that’s fine, they’re game developers, after all. It’s just little things like the lack of transitions between different menus and buttons filled with a horrendous greyish silver gradient containing text in a nasty font that’s way too big that make me cringe a little.
Pricing & In-App Purchases
International Snooker 2012 is another app with both a free and paid version of the app. The free version includes in-app purchases to unlock the career mode, multiplayer mode and several other things. This is fine, and is a very common model these days.
The game features lots of different camera angles that show you the best view of your shot.
However, what really bugs me is the paid version still has in-app purchases to unlock things like the pool modes. Why that isn’t included in the price I do not know, and I really am confused as to what the point of this paid version is. It’s the free version, with some of the in-app purchases already there for you, but not all of them. It looks like it works out cheaper to buy the paid version first if you eventually want all the content, but I’m still completely confused as to what Big Head Games’ idea behind this crazy pricing model is.
Conclusion
Despite some gameplay and pricing flaws, International Snooker 2012 is one of the best, if not the best snooker sim available for the platform. It’s nearing console game quality, and the in-depth career mode and deep statistics will keep you playing.