''Rack 'Em'' is a

sports video game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

developed by

Artech Digital Entertainment Artech Digital Entertainment, Ltd. (stylized as ARTECH studios) was a video game developer formed in 1982 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Also known as Artech Studios, the company developed games such as '' Raze's Hell'', '' Monopoly'', '' Jeopardy ...

and published by Accolade. ''Rack 'Em'' simulates five cue-sports, including

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

and

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in Ind ...

. The game was released for both

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

and Commodore 64 in 1988.

Gameplay

''Rack 'Em'' has five different game modes:

Snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in Ind ...

Pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

8-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 ...

9-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 ...

and

Bumper Pool Bumper pool is a cue sport played on an rectangular (or sometimes octagonal) table fitted with two pockets and an array of fixed cushioned obstacles, called bumpers, within the interior of the table surface. Table Typically, bumper pool table ...

. A

trick shot A trick shot (also trickshot or trick-shot) is a shot played on a billiards table (most often a pool table, though snooker tables are also used), which seems unlikely or impossible or requires significant skill. Trick shots frequently involve t ...

mode allows saving shots to disk. The game includes in-game editor for the bumper pool mode.

Reception

The game received a score of 708/1000 from ''

ACE An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ca ...

'' magazine in March 1989, which described the game as having "pretty realistic"

game physics Computer animation physics or game physics are laws of physics as they are defined within a simulation or video game, and the programming logic used to implement these laws. Game physics vary greatly in their degree of similarity to real-world ...

. However, the game does not have opponent

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

to play against, and ''ACE'' described this omission as the "sole disappointing aspect of Rack 'Em".

References

External links

{{Snooker Video Games 1988 video games Accolade (company) games DOS games Commodore 64 games Cue sports video games Snooker video games Video games developed in Canada Artech Studios games Single-player video games