Game review: Pool Ninja - iPhone / iPod Touch

Ant and Dec.

Microsoft and annoying-as-hell TV adverts.

Some combinations are just meant to be.

But pool and ninjas? Now that’s one pairing I didn’t think I’d ever see together, but here it is in Pool Ninja for iPhone and iPod Touch from Distinctive Developments.

The coupling isn’t quite a marriage made in heaven but it does provide the foundations for a fun and challenging game.

This isn’t your standard play-a-frame pool game. Instead it’s a single-player action puzzle game bundled up in a pool theme and set in a tranquil Japanese environment.

Despite having ‘ninja’ in its title this game doesn’t require you to learn any stealthy tactics or become a deadly fighter with a cue.

No, the aim on each of the increasingly demanding levels in to pot a formation of balls in the shortest time possible.

Over time the objective is to keep honing your skills and demonstrating mastery of lightning fast play until you become a ‘pool ninja’.

Playing a shot is easy in Pool Ninja, and the controls will instantly feel familiar if you’ve played any other pool or snooker games on one of Apple’s mobile devices.

It’s just swipe the screen to aim your shot or change your view, then set power and spin, and finally play the shot. The controls are simple and work very smoothly.

It’s just as well playing a shot is straightforward because the other big difference between this and other pool games is you’re always up against the clock, so there is no time to meticulously line up each shot.

Super speedy shot play is needed. Get out of position or one missed pot and you’ll be in trouble – perfection is demanded of wannabe pool ninjas. A single mistake basically ruins the level.

Ninja training is not a five-minute job. The game comes with 60 stages - 20 each of easy, medium and hard difficulty levels, although easy isn’t especially easy so the challenge is tough right from the start.

You can redo any challenge to better your time, keeping the game’s appeal burning even longer.

Online leaderboards and achievements let you compare your performances against friends on the plus+ network and other players around the world.

The graphics and audio in Pool Ninja aren’t ever dazzling but serve their purpose perfectly well. The pool table looks nicely authentic and you get a good feel for your Japanese-style training base surroundings.

The ball physics are generally very reliable and believable, although the pockets are quite generous. This is fine because with its bite-sized levels and race-against-time pressure, the game has a real arcade feel to it – it never feels like you’re playing a pool sim.

I’ve enjoyed working through the challenges, putting my potting skills and reflexes to the test, but there are a few things which keep Pool Ninja from achieving pool perfection. In fairness, most of these things are more down to personal preference than anything being terribly wrong with the game.

I sometimes find myself being slowed down when the game doesn’t line me up with the best ball after a pot, meaning I have to swipe around the table to line up my next shot.

It’s also taken a lot of trial and error to get through some levels while I work out the best sequence of shots. It would be nice to get some sort of run-through of the best solution to each level before starting, similar to John Virgo’s trick shot tutorial in the old Big Break TV show.

The game deserves credit for its originality in merging pool with a ninja style, but it feels like the ninja part of the game has been tacked on to increase the title’s appeal.

Ninja is one of the buzzwords in the App Store and if only the developers had managed to shoehorn in a zombie angle too then they would really be on to something big, as virtually every other game lately seems to have had ninja or zombie in its name.

Pool Ninja would still work perfectly well just as a pool game.

At least early on it takes some getting used to playing pool in a relaxed oriental setting rather than a pool hall or bar.

It kind of turns playing pool into learning a mysterious Far Eastern magic rather than a game most people play while larking about down the pub.

I’ve sometimes found myself yearning for a break from the puzzles to just rack up the balls and play a proper game of virtual pool.

Despite a few reservations, I think Pool Ninja is a good game.

Pool is one of those pastimes, chess and darts being others, that can only be taken so far in video game form. Most conversions of it are OK and it’s very hard to improve on the standard format and produce an outstanding pool game.

Pool Ninja at least tries to provide a new angle. It’s a fun pocket-sized game ideally suited to playing in short bursts on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Verdict: 7 out of 10 – Get your ninja on and show off your potting skills in this novel take on pool.