May 25, 2007 - Eidos and Conspiracy Games have really tapped into something clever here. Well sorta! While I'm not really a fan of pool, I do certainly enjoy playing games with lots of bonus unlockable content especially when it involves sexy pictures and videos of scantily clad hotties. Sure, I feel dirty the entire time and the actual pool is not all that great, but still, very few games have the nerve (and integrity) to simply offer up such a blatantly sexy (or sexist) package without any compromise. In recent memory, I can only think of Rumble Roses, Leisure Suit Larry and The Guy Game as games that have truly tapped into the "sex sells" motto with as wanton abandon. While not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, fans of private pool playing can do a lot worse than this game and the tantalizing extras are just icing the cake.

Right from its well endowed front cover model (why else would you be reading this?) leaning over a pool table with stick in hand, its easy to see that Pocket Pool is equal parts sex and pool. Luckily, both portions fare quite well in the greater scheme of things. Sure it's not the best pool rendition you'll find in a game and I suppose pure porn would satisfy more, but for a titillating, yet perfectly innocent, game of pool, this'll do nicely.

The pool game offers plenty of variety in game modes and table speed, pool cue selection, tables, balls, etc and even has a few neat single player games that are somewhat fun to play. A time attack mode of sorts to clear the table, a game that forces you to clear the table in 20 shots or less, and there are also the multiplayer games; against the AI or against other pervs over Wi-Fi. It's a shame, and almost sacrilege, that there's no hot-seat multiplayer where two or four players could take turns on one PSP, but maybe this isn't the sort of game you'd play with friends anyway... too many questions!

The pool physics, when the table speed is set to medium, is quite playable, but you'll still see balls bank at odd angles for no reason once in a while. The aiming is well handled even though an option to see your ball's trajectory (or a theoretically view of where it should go if power is set perfectly) would've been nice. The only caveat with the aiming is that it's sometimes difficult to tell which ball is which (sure they're colored, but we're not all pool-hall junkies) and makes sinking a certain type of ball (or a certain numbered ball) harder than it should be. Luckily, there are many camera angles and if you pan around enough, you can figure anything out. In the control department, while it may not seem intuitive at first to set the power and actually take a shot, it becomes second nature soon enough and shouldn't stop anyone from having fun.

In most games (there's no true single player campaign, so you just pick various game types and play) you'll get to chose your venue, table (of course there are various model graphics on them), balls (no comment), cue, character (yes, you can pick a guy - more on that in a moment), table speed and soundtrack. You're then off to play some pool. If you win, you'll more than likely unlock some content in the game. There are unlockables in the form of venues, cues, tables and balls which are not tracked other than in the selection menu because Pocket Pool is all about unlocking some Sexy Time Content! In the gallery you'll see page after page of locked items which will immediately motivate you to get playing. In this gallery, you'll unlock pictures, videos and, ugh, music tracks. Couldn't these have been put somewhere else? It also doesn't help that after unlocking any content the game will ask you to save your game, but not before asking you if you want to delete some files to make room for the overwrite operation. Yes, this is the worst save system ever implemented in a game, but after you know about it, you simply click "no" and move on to a traditional save. No big deal.