Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2366 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2007-01-12
• Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.co.uk Review
Although it's hard to make snooker seem terribly sexy (Sega try their best by making everyone on the box cover scowl like they're in a Steven Segal movie) the fact is it has an enormous fan base and it actually works really well as a video game. As with any yearly update this isn't massively different to the last game in the series: it features plenty of celebrity snooker players, (rubbish) commentary from John Parrot and John Virgo, plenty of game modes and online play on the Xbox. Although there is a tutorial mode, the game is intuitive enough for you to pick and play from the off, especially if you start the career mode and begin to slowly work your way up the ranks with your own custom character.

The biggest challenge in the game though is having the will power to turn off all the control assists which initially help to make the game so easy to play. A new cue ball position zone marker makes things a lot easier than previous games, as does helpful aiming arrows indicating when and how hard you should hit a ball. Lining up shots still isn't quite as easy as it should be though and altering the strength of the shot on the right analogue stick also feels less accurate than it should do. There are a few bugs and glitches too, particularly around foul balls. Graphically the game won't win any awards, with poor animation and zombie like players, but that's really not what the game is about. Until next year at least this is the best, and only, next gen snooker game around.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
Experience the thrill of competing at the Crucible in the only officially licensed game of World Snooker. Featuring 104 snooker players including greats of the game such as Ronnie O'Sullivan, Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, all of the official tournaments and venues and commentary from John Parrott, Steve Davis and John Virgo.

Customer Reviews

Game is only just okay!
I have every WCS PS2 game, and they all perform great except SEGA's latest addition.

WCS 2007, is a bit of a disappointment and it's just an okay game at the end of the day. It's very atmospheric - yes, but the navigation is a mess, with white letters on a blue background, mixed with yet more blue so you can't read stats etc.

The game plays quite well, but the commentary needs major work, more snooker stars are needed, better visuals are long overdue and maybe better stats and customisable player entrances and stats wouldn't be a bad idea.

But after handing over my £30, I was shocked at how buggy this game is.

1. Audience sounds stay locked in a loop
2. John Virgo calls fouls, when there aren't any!
3. When cueing, the cue follows above the ball all the time - so when adding backspin the cue is always shown at the top of cueball.
4. Players cue with their arms out to the side - what the hell is that about!

But this shocked me the most - I was playing at the Grand Prix event at Guild Hall Preston.

Shot 1 Ryan Day breaks off

(Should be my shot next) - er not according to the game it wasn't lol.

Shot 2 Ryan Day plays safety shot (after he already broke off)

No I am not making this up. Sega, what are you doing???????


I can't believe I paid £[...] for this game. But saying that it does play well once you forget the bugs - but still, a game should be error free!

Little details make such a difference - but the sound effects and audience sounds are still very amateurish. We've had what 6 WCS games, and they turn this mess out and sell it.

Come on sega - sort it out please. Still much to be done to improve this effort on 2005 edition.

Has this game been rush released?
It's as if there is no QA team involved! If there was, how did they overlook such bugs?

- it's hard to make out the ball colours
- that audience loop bug that lasts til the end of a frame
- that horrible aiming aid blob thing
- there's never anybody online (in all the times I've tried)

Sort it out Sega!

Not without faults . . .
I've played a previous incarnation of this series on my friends XBox and enjoyed the Pool mini game in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe . . . so already, this is going to be a different kind of review to those that have already been written! Hope it helps you . . .

The controls for the game are very well thought out. It's a good example of "easy to learn, lifetime to master" handling and the ball physics appears accurate enough to reflect a true life game, albeit annoyingly so at times - lose positioning on one shot and it can be very hard getting it back. I like the graphics a lot and the players look well drawn.

Ok, on with the downsides . . . The Menus can be a bit transparent - I don't mean that they are easy to navigate, I mean they are quite difficult to read most of the time with light blue letters on a slightly darker blue background. I've noticed too that during gameplay, when you miss a shot after building up a break, the crowd will make a short groaning sound . . . which then continuously loops for the rest of the frame - a bug that a code writer obviously missed! This really takes some of the fun out of the game and has forced me at times to reduce the Ambient Volume in sound options to zero. On the whole, the commentary during the game is quite good and only slightly repetitive when John Virgo starts with his anecdotes, but he always indicates a foul shot when you play away from a touching ball, even though you lose no points!

There are some graphical mistakes too - sometimes the cue is out on close ups, either clearly hitting the top of the ball when you play a deep-screw shot or sometimes when bridging over other balls, the cue is actually nowhere near the white!

The other annoying part of the game for me is that there is no Widescreen display option to select. This means either putting up with a number of fat players, a wide table and some egg-shaped balls, or changing your tv ratio to 4:3 to get the most out of the game. This ought to be an option in ALL games these days in my opinion and surprises me when it's absent.

After all this though, the game is very absorbing and plays very well indeed. The difficulty seems good so far and correctly pitched, the advice and features with the Coach mid-game (Attacking/Neutral/Defensive) offer some good options and all round, I'm very glad I purchased this game. Perhaps a later release of the game will have one or two of the bugs ironed out but then, maybe not!