by Ron Enderland

Jolly afternoon for a bit of snooker, what?

Snooker is the rabidly played (and followed) billiards game from across the water. Devotion to snooker in Britain as a spectator sport is much greater than that accorded to pool in the states. Note that we’re talking “snooker” (when properly pronounced rhymes with ‘duker’), as performed by His Royal Highness, Steve Davis.

If your reaction to that name is “Who?,” then you are obviously not a snooker fan. Steve Davis is the Babe Ruth, the Jack Nicklaus, the Wayne Gretzky of snooker. He was the first to be recorded on film performing a 147 break in tournament competition. A 147 break is the perfect snooker score. Rated by difficulty, it is much harder than a 300 bowling score, perhaps just this side of a perfect game no-hitter.

This program features the tutelage of Davis, as well as the complete footage of his historic run. This is a fascinating 88 megabyte video, one that still gives goose bumps, despite the fact that the feat was accomplished thirteen years ago, “when I had more hair” as Steve quips. I heartily recommend a watching of it, accessible from the main menu.

Davis provides numerous tips, including breaking, snookering, pocketing, using english, etc. This advice is valuable for the virtual game as well as in real life. How valuable? Well, Interplay offers a money back guarantee if Virtual Snooker doesn’t improve your real game! They give you thirty days to implement the advice given. If your game’s not improved, your explanation of why not will get your forty bucks back. I’m impressed with Interplay putting their money where their mouth is.

My guess is that they won’t be doing much refunding, though. Davis is an excellent, personable teacher. He’ll have you snookering your opponent in no time.

If you haven’t yet guessed, I’m impressed with the program. It is very well written, easy to master, and comes with a feature that I particularly like. This is tracking, which accurately predicts the path of the struck balls, as well as that of the cue ball.

This would be a simple way to handicap a better player in a two player game. Just let the less talented opponent use tracking, while you switch yours off. It is also valuable for practicing by oneself. As good as the game itself is, the mechanics behind the program leave much to be desired.

First of all, it is written (a 1996 program!) for DOS. This means that the millions of Win95’ers out there will have to install DOS CD-ROM drivers and run this game from the command prompt IF they want sound! Windows 95 is picky about using sound drivers with DOS apps, and this game can’t use the ones included in the 95 package.

Second, the graphics, while decidedly undemanding of a system, are not sharp. There are 1024x768 drivers available for certain brands of cards, but you’ll have to be luckier than I was. I had to settle for the generic VESA 640x480, which wasn’t that great.

The excellence of the game itself goes a long way towards overcoming these matters of built-in-obsolescence.

If you enjoy table games, give this one a shot. Enjoy seeing sports history made by Steve Davis. While you’re at it, take the Interplay snooker game improvement challenge. Good shot!