Bottom line, Pure Pool is a good pool game with several variations of 8-Ball, 9-Ball, and even Snooker. Snooker is played on a really big table with smaller balls and different rules that are beyond the scope of this article. What I really want to discuss is how developers can create a even more complete, compelling billiards experience going forward.

Let's start with the tables. Pure Pool lets you change the color of the baize. Okay cool. Now what if they also had different shaped tables? You know like crosses, L-shapes, and hexagons. Some guys actually did this in a little-known game called Pool Paradise back on GameCube and PS2, and it was easily the most interesting feature I'd seen in a pool title. Why stop there? If you're going to have a campaign of some sorts, make it a story about visiting different pool halls from all walks of life. You got the local dive bar's table with cigarette burns that you need to shoot around and grease stains that give the balls some extra roll. Then you got the saloon down the street that's cramped against the wall on one corner and slightly slanted cuz the staff just doesn't care. Then there's the old chinatown table that's played outside in the rain with a half broken cue. I would genuinely like to see a pool game with a wide variety of shitty tables where you can work your way up to proper tournment felts and even unlock wacky shapes like circles or the Star of David.

The main reason I'm begging for this is because I never seen an iregular-shaped pool table in real life. It would probably be too expensive to produce, and since there are solid video pool engines already developed, they may as well carry these physics over to different geometries for something totally new. In the meantime check out Pure Pool, and if someone ever makes a billiards game like one described above, please drop a line in the comments section.