Commodore User


Steve Davis World Snooker
By CDS
Amiga 500

 
Published in Commodore User #68

Steve Davis World Snooker

Now these are what I call nice touches. A nice full colour show of Steve on the loading screen. The entire theme tune to BBC snooker sampled clear as a bell. And just to prove it, if you didn't believe it the first time around, they've even printed the signature of one Steve Hans, as an "authentic" touch. He's probably a friend of Steve's or something.

Here's an interesting point of conversation that you can bring up at a dinner party while trying to distract your employer's wife from the huge, bellowing, snorting sounds coming from grandpa as he mutters away in the corner. A long time ago, when Steve Davis World Snooker appeared for the first time on 8-bit, it was hailed as the best of its kind, a title it only recently relinquished to 3D Pool. Amiga Steve Davis World Snooker is appalling. Graphically it's great. Sonically it's great. Animation is smooth - and variation is high enough to retain interest. The problem? It's just too damn inaccurate.

Once you have decided which of the six games you wish to play, you begin to notice the inaccuracy. You are presented with a short line that points in the direction that the cue ball will go when you take the shot. The problem is, only angles of about ten degrees seem to make any difference to the outcome of the shot. But no matter how perfectly you set up the shot, the contact ball still shoots off in a completely unexpected direction.

This spoils what is in all other respects a very competent game. It could have been so good, that's what's annoying. Why oh why did they have to mess it up? Oh well, it's back to the C64 version for me.

Tony Dillon