Product 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.

• 104 of the world`s best snooker and pool players.
• 20 officially endorsed snooker and pool tournaments: All recreated in spectacular detail, including the World Snooker Championship, Masters and all the leading tournaments throughout the world.
• Four new Championship modes: Now gives you five unique championship challenges. Includes Snooker, Pool (9-Ball and 8-Ball), Hybrid Season (take on a challenging season featuring Snooker and Pool tournaments), Trickshots and Golden Cue.
• New Positioning Play feature: Allows you to position the cue ball with greater accuracy, helping to set up your next shot.
• Trickshot Championship: Features a Trickshot Championship for the first time in the series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5001 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2007-01-12
• Platform: Xbox 360

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

Could have been better, but still very good!
GOOD POINTS:-
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+ Good graphics and animations
+ For the majority, good player likenesses
+ Excellent aiming and positional aid
+ Loads of different pool & snooker tournaments
+ Very addictive
+ Play Snooker, Pool, Billiards or mix all 3 in 'Golden Cue' Mode

BAD POINTS:-
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- Commentary is still naff and very annoying
- Create a player mode is still not as good as it could or should be
- AI can prove to be very frustrating at times

OVERALL:-
Ultimately, despite some deficiencies in presentation, World Snooker Championship 2007's succeeds thanks to its fantastic accessibility. Anyone can get to grips with the intuitive controls, whether they're a snooker and pool newcomer or otherwise. Thankfully too, the intricacies of both sports are recreated faithfully too. Of course, this occassionally means the pace of games slows to a plod as you carefully plan shots - something that's painfully evident during multiplayer matches - but there's no denying the latest addition to SEGA's franchise has something to offer even the most dogged of snooker skeptics.

For hardcore snooker fans
The only other snooker game I have ever played was the very first World Championship Snooker game on the PlayStation. Things have obviously moved on since then, but by how much is a difficult question to answer. It's difficult to improve on already near perfect ball physics but this edition is much more accurate than the earlier versions.

Graphically there is little to say for the game. Players look like their real life couterparts but the animation is slow and unoriginal. The create a player mode is very limited in comparison to the likes of WWE games. Arenas all look virtually identical and are covered in darkness for the most part. Once you get to the table though, the graphics do the job perfectly.

The controls are easy to pick up and playing most shots couldn't be simpler. The cue ball positional indicator is a very useful feature, allowing you to judge almost exactly where the cue ball will end up after a shot. This is not only useful in break building, but makes safety play against the CPU a bit easier than in previous installments of the franchise.

The single player game revolves around taking your created player through tournaments, from early qualification rounds all the way through to the final. This is not easy at first but as you win matches you gain experience points for you to use to improve your player's stats (RPG style). These stats improve all manner of attributes, from potting ability to positional play, even through to how well you perform under pressure. This all makes World Snooker Championship 2007 a long term investment rather than a game for a quick fix.

Not only do you get snooker with all the major championships, but also a fully licensed pool career mode, plus the option to combine the two in one tournament. There's the obligatory trick shot mode to unlock and a limited online mode via Xbox Live.

Xbox Live games can be very low paced, taking over an hour to complete three frames of snooker. There are no online Achievements so don't feel that it is imperetive to play ranked games online.

Overall this is an accurate simulation of the world of professional snooker. If you are not a fan of the sport I would suggest you look elsewhere. It is a slow game that will take a very long time to complete fully, but gives a rewarding feeling for persevering with it.

A Must Buy for every Snooker Fan!
Blade Interactive have been producing excellent snooker titles for over 5 years now. Having owned every snooker title of theirs to date, I can wholeheartedly recommend their latest addition.

Each title just keeps getting better and now World Snooker Championship 2007 comes to next generation consoles with a host of new features.

Create your character and take yourself to the number one spot and live your snooker career dream or take on friends on xbox live.

This latest effort includes a new positioning feature which makes positional play much easier allowing better break-building. Again all the major tournaments are there to work through. Not only that but Blade have now seen fit to include additional career modes for pool and Trickshot.

Blade call their latest release "the complete Cue Sports Compendium" and I think this pretty much sums it up.

Well done Blade