''Virtual Pool 3'' is a 3D, first-person

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

, developed and released for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

by Celeris.

Overview

The Virtual Pool series made its debut in 1995 with the release of Virtual Pool. From there,

Interplay Interplay may refer to: * Interplay (John Coltrane album), ''Interplay'' (John Coltrane album), 1957 * Interplay (Bill Evans album), ''Interplay'' (Bill Evans album), 1962 * Interplay (Al Haig album), ''Interplay'' (Al Haig album), 1976 * Interpla ...

went on to release Virtual Pool 2 in November 1997, adding a wealth of improvements including enhanced physics modelling and a handful of new game types. Virtual Pool Hall soon followed in December 1999, bringing with it the introduction of

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

to the series. It wasn't a perfect break though, as Virtual Pool Hall suffered from poor opponent AI and a lack of a pool hall atmosphere, ironic considering its name. Initially, Virtual Pool 3 was released as a retail boxed version endorsed by

Jeanette Lee Jeanette Lee (born Lee Jin-Hee, Hangul: 이진희, July 9, 1971, in Brooklyn, New York) is a Korean-American professional pool player. She was nicknamed the Black Widow by her friends because, in spite of her sweet demeanor, she would "eat peop ...

, the successful

Korean-American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

professional pool player. Currently the latest version is available on the Celeris site as a download and is still supported via downloadable patches.

Gameplay

The game can be played in single-player mode against the computer (Career Mode, Tournament or Quick Play), or against other human opponents on the Internet or locally through a

LAN Lan or LAN may also refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...

. The game features eight billiard venues the player can choose from, which include six pool tables, a snooker table, and a

carom Carom may refer to: * Ajwain (''Trachyspermum ammi''), an herb in Indian cuisine * Carom billiards (also known as Carambole) * Ricochet, a rebound, bounce or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile * Carrom, a family of South ...

table for

cushion caroms One-cushion billiards is a carom billiards discipline generally played on a cloth-covered, , pocketless billiard table with two cue balls and a third red-colored ball. In a one-cushion shot, the cue ball off both with at least one rail being str ...

or three-cushion billiards. There are three preset table configurations available for all games (Championship, Professional or Amateur), but any table can be customized for roll speed and pocket dimensions. Twenty-one variations are featured in the game, and while most players stick to pool favorites such as

nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle of e ...

eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a ...

and

straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many billiard balls as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of pool played in professional ...

, as well as

, the inclusion of less common variations such as

cowboy pool Cowboy pool (or simply cowboy) is a hybrid pool game combining elements of English billiards through an intermediary game, with more standard pocket billiards characteristics. The game employs four balls, the cue ball and three others, numbered o ...

honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

and bowliards may be of interest to some, especially since finding real-life players of them can be difficult. The games featured in Virtual Pool 3 are as it follows: *

Snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

Nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle of e ...

Straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many billiard balls as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of pool played in professional ...

Eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a ...

– league * Eight-ball – midwest * Eight-ball – bar * Eight-ball – pub *

Ten-ball Ten-ball is a rotation pool game similar to nine-ball, but using ten balls instead of nine, and with the 10 ball instead of the 9 as the "" Although the game has existed for since the early 1960s, its popularity has risen since the early 2000s ...

* Six-Ball * Three-ball *

One-pocket One-pocket is a pool game. Unlike other games played on a pool table where any can be used to score , only one pocket for each player is used in this game. The object of the game is to score points. A point is made when a player pockets any objec ...

Rotation Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...

Bank pool Bank pool is a pool game that has as its most fundamental requirement that all scoring shots in the game must be made by a called ball off a and into a called pocket. While the game has multiple variations, the predominant version through much ...

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Cowboy pool Cowboy pool (or simply cowboy) is a hybrid pool game combining elements of English billiards through an intermediary game, with more standard pocket billiards characteristics. The game employs four balls, the cue ball and three others, numbered o ...

* Bowliards * Cribbage pool * Fifteen-ball * Basic pocket billiards *

Cushion caroms One-cushion billiards is a carom billiards discipline generally played on a cloth-covered, , pocketless billiard table with two cue balls and a third red-colored ball. In a one-cushion shot, the cue ball off both with at least one rail being str ...

(one-cushion carom billiards) * Three-cushion billiards

Online play

Players use the GameSpy Arcade client to access the game's main lobby and then create or join virtual rooms where they can participate in

online play An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and s ...

. * Challenge Mode creates a ''winner-stays-on'' style of play where the creator of the room selects the game and table. * Normal Mode allows the player to create a room where he, or the previous match winner can set the game type, table and players who play. The Virtual International Players Ladder (VIPLadder) is a perpetual league for players of games in the Virtual Pool franchise. Players compete in matches to earn points from other VIP Ladder players. As players earn points, they move up the ladder. Besides other normal leagues ending with playoffs (like the Eight-ball Pub League), there are several regular weekly online tournaments that every player can attend. Each tournament usually takes a few hours, but some more prestigious tournaments such as the Virtual 9 Ball World Championships and the Virtual Snooker World Championships can take several days or weeks to complete.

Reception

''Virtual Pool 3'' was mostly very well received by critics, with an average score of 85% at

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

, which makes it the highest rated billiards game on

, as of 2007. industry standard Video Game aggregator website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

also scored the game well, at another franchise high of 82/100

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

rated the game highly, with an 8.7 out of 10 score, particularly citing the "gorgeous" visuals as well as the "better ball physics and better online support" than the previous titles in the series. However, GameSpot did find that it was "disappointing" that the players were invisible, and not fully rendered (As with all

Virtual Pool ''Virtual Pool'' is a 3D, first-person sports simulation video game series with computer simulations of cue sports which was developed by Celeris. The games in the series simulate pool, snooker and carom billiards. The ''Virtual Pool'' serie ...

games). GameSpot wrapped up their review of the game by stating that "you can't find a pool sim that looks and plays as much like the real thing as Virtual Pool 3 does.".

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

were also highly positive about the game; scoring an 8.5/10, calling Virtual Pool 3 "really a great game", and saying the "great gameplay that will keep you entertained for a long time since", and "it's a whole lot of fun". However, IGN also said that Virtual Pool 3 "won't replace the real thing"

Sequel

'' Virtual Pool 4'' the sequel to the game announced on July 6, 2012, and was released on 15 August 2012 worldwide for

. The game was featured many graphical and feature updates from Virtual Pool 3. An online only version of the game was released in 2015 that featured online tournaments and rankings, similar to ''Virtual Pool 3''.

References

External links

''Virtual Pool 3'' official website
{{Virtual Pool 2000 video games Interplay Entertainment games Virtual Pool Windows games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation Network games Global Star Software games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games developed in the United States