Pool Party - Nintendo Wii

Purchased again - this time for a friend. Hours of "realistic pool" fun whether set for Single (w/computer players) or Multi (human) players. Pool stick for the Wi a must to get the right feel (bank shots, etc.).

First off, I play pool... I'm not stellar, but I certainly know my way around a pool table. With respect to the pool physics and realism of play, this game is pretty decent. However, the interface has some serious shortcomings.1) The menu system really stinks - you spend a lot of time setting up your game choices, and have to re-do it every game. As a previous reviewer said, the ball-in-hand control requires dropping into the in-game menu. Also, it is sometimes difficult to indentify the balls - even if you know the numbers by color because at a distance, the striped ones tend to "bleed" a bit. The in-game menu does offer an "identify" feature where you can point at a ball and get a closeup, but it's kind of annoying.2) as others have mentioned, the character portrait takes up a rather large space in the lower left corner, and it only fades while actively moving. You have to mess with your camera angles to actually see the ball/pocket you're going for at times.2a)You can switch camera views to try and find an angle where you can see what's going on, but there are something like 6 different angles, and the only two really useful ones are top-down and behind-the-cue-stick.3) I'm a bit disappointed with the implementation of the Wii controls... not because the controls are bad per-se, but because it just seems like there's so much more potential to do something that no other pool video game has done before: realistically simulate the action of handling the cuestick.WHAT I'D LIKE TO SEE:It seems like a natural interface... you line up your player's angle and set the english (where on the cue ball you want to hit), but when you take the shot, the angle and speed given to the WiiMote would translate directly to how the cue moved and hit the ball.WHAT THIS GAME ACTUALLY DOES:You use the Nunchuck thumb or the digital pad on the Wiimote to move the player around the table (actually, to move the cue stick in relation to the cue ball) to line up the shot, you then hold the 1 button while either moving the WiiMote around or using the digital pad to set up the english on the ball, then pull the B trigger and use the up and down on the digital pad to set the power. When you're ready to take the shot, you hold the B trigger and sort of jerk the WiiMote forward. However, the angle/direction, and most importantly, the SPEED of the movement has absolutely no bearing on the power or angle of the shot. Those are all set up with the control actions stated earlier. In short, the game implements a control interface that is no better than what you could do with a traditional game controller.3a) When I was playing with another person, we both found ourselves waiting a long time for the other to adjust and line up their shot, and having to re-choose all our game options to play the same table setup and game a second time was kind of bothersome.4) The music is decent enough, but when you choose a song, it repeats for the ENTIRE GAME. It gets really tiring after a couple rounds. You can unlock more songs by winning games, but there really aren't all that many, and the single song repeat music makes them all so annoying you'll be looking for the mute option really quickly.Ok, I was pretty harsh. The bottom line is that the pool playing itself is pretty good, and I'd rather own this title than not have a pool game to play. However, as soon as I can get a pool title with a better interface and that takes better advantage of the WiiMote, I'm going to ditch this and never look back.

Do not remember buying this, but if I did its not in my game library so must have not really liked it much after all. I loved to play pool in the game room at College, and always look for a virtual way to play on a console or the computer. This probably failed miserable since I don't even remember it.

As I prepare to sell this game here on Amazon, I honestly believe this game is pretty good. There are a few kinks, but it's ok for a billiards-oriented video game.

Great game!

I didn't get a book with this, but I don't know if it would have helped. I did not like that when I got done playing a game, it put me back to the beginning like I had to start all over. Like I said I had no book and maybe it might have told me something. It's not a bad game, I enjoyed the play, but did not like going back to the beginning and a friend who borrowed it could not get it to play against somebody. Maybe that's in the book. Some may like it some not. I got rid of mine.

Because we just got Wii, I thought I would get some games that interested all of our family members. I should have read the reviews for this game first. I learned my lesson. this game is so boring & tedious. I definitely do not recommend it for anyone. I'll be more careful next time.

Didn't come with the pool stick like it said n game is not very easy to play....