Snooker 19 [PS4/XBO/Switch/PC]

Game mechanics look decent. Atmosphere and commentary, not so much. This one could get old fast. On the fence.
 
Gunslinger said:
Game mechanics look decent. Atmosphere and commentary, not so much. This one could get old fast. On the fence.
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i'll get it for free with PS+ or when a sale is happening for under 10 euro. ;)
i'm not playing pool or snooker to much... so this is nice to have but nothing i could spent more than 10 bucks on.

edit: there is no "swing-stick" mechanic in this one?! or is it just this one gameplay video (post #27) where they use the "power bar"?! are both systems implemented?
 
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PRO_TOO said:
there is no "swing-stick" mechanic in this one?! or is it just this one gameplay video (post #27) where they use the "power bar"?! are both systems implemented?
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You pull the stick back, which makes the power bar fill, and then push it forward to stop the power bar filling. But as far as I know, any error in your "push" (left/right) won't affect the shot.
 
Chris Davies said:
You pull the stick back, which makes the power bar fill, and then push it forward to stop the power bar filling. But as far as I know, any error in your "push" (left/right) won't affect the shot.
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ah ok. so its a mix of both! na, i dont like that.
wished there was a real swing mechanic (including left/right error) like in golf games. plus a little cue ball graphic to put the hitting spot more precise (backspin and such).
 
PRO_TOO said:
ah ok. so its a mix of both! na, i dont like that.
wished there was a real swing mechanic (including left/right error) like in golf games. plus a little cue ball graphic to put the hitting spot more precise (backspin and such).
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I think I like it as they've implemented it - with snooker being a difficult game (when it comes to long shots especially), I imagine they've experimented with it and decided that it just makes an already difficult game on the hardest difficulty settings just too hard to be fun.

If you play without aiming aids, for example, and you're lining up everything by eye, and you miss a pot just because you were slightly off-line with your stick push (even though you got your actual aim - pre-shot - perfect, which is really difficult alone!), I think you'd end up with your highest breaks being in the 20s and getting sick of the game.

The producer has already said that he wanted to make the most realistic snooker game, but not one where it feels like you can't compete with professionals, rather than be exactly as bad as you are in real-life.

But really, I'm saying this because I trust these guys completely - they're the best in the business when it comes to snooker games and they've got years of experience between them. The reason they've switched to this new method is because they think it makes more sense than the current method that every other cue-sport game uses, and they wouldn't do that if it didn't feel better.

However - I'll tweet them and enquire about stick accuracy, I don't think they've ever explicitly discussed their control method before...
 
Chris Davies said:
I think I like it as they've implemented it - with snooker being a difficult game (when it comes to long shots especially), I imagine they've experimented with it and decided that it just makes an already difficult game on the hardest difficulty settings just too hard to be fun.

If you play without aiming aids, for example, and you're lining up everything by eye, and you miss a pot just because you were slightly off-line with your stick push (even though you got your actual aim - pre-shot - perfect, which is really difficult alone!), I think you'd end up with your highest breaks being in the 20s and getting sick of the game.

The producer has already said that he wanted to make the most realistic snooker game, but not one where it feels like you can't compete with professionals, rather than be exactly as bad as you are in real-life.

But really, I'm saying this because I trust these guys completely - they're the best in the business when it comes to snooker games and they've got years of experience between them. The reason they've switched to this new method is because they think it makes more sense than the current method that every other cue-sport game uses, and they wouldn't do that if it didn't feel better.

However - I'll tweet them and enquire about stick accuracy, I don't think they've ever explicitly discussed their control method before...
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thanks for the explanation! that makes sense to me!
kinda the same problem like in a lot of sport simulation games, i guess. make it playable but at the same time keeping the sim aspect at a high level.
 
Chris Davies said:
You're expecting a hell of a lot from what is an absolutely tiny team - and only willing to spend £10 on a fully-licensed game that comes with a career mode... I don't think that's fair, nor to suggest a lot of work hasn't gone into it - they've developed their own physics system, they're running online side-by-side tournaments when real events are running... That's a huge feature for a niche game (and it's £30 when it could easily have been £50). This isn't Hustle Kings.

As for the shot mechanic - I agree that it would be nice if being off-centre with the right stick meant an off-centre shot, but that sounds like the control methods in other PS4 snooker/pool games and I find them fiddly and frustrating. This new system looks like it allows you to build a break, without it being much too easy - that's the sweet spot IMO (as he says in the interview above, nobody wants to play a game where they're as bad as real life - but you also don't want to clear up the table every other frame, and I think this control scheme sounds like a great idea).

Honestly, I have a lot of faith in these guys given their experience in creating snooker games (a lot of people from the old WSC games are working on this), so I think the physics will be fantastic, and the control method sounds different (I absolutely love the "fanned" shot paths when you aim, so you can't just line up every pot perfectly, even with aiming aids on).

My main fear is about playing online (and I hate playing online usually, but their "play alongside the pros" idea sounds great). What happens if everyone else uses "amateur" aiming, and I want to use the hardest setting? I have a sneaky suspicion it may just be "play on whatever you like"...
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I take back what I said a few posts/pages back. I was assuming the publisher were using the same coders as Pure Pool, I didn't realize at the time it was Lab42 that are the coders, they are of course the guys behind the coding of the WSC series (**), which had great (in my opinion) AI in the game, very realistic for the time (2003 - 2011 I recall)......so lets hope this delivers, it looks great, will have great physics, and hopefully will have WSC ++ AI in it.

(**) One slightly puzzling thing is that I have seen that the 3rd new Snooker game coming out, an update of Pool Nations's Snooker derivative "Snooker Nation", now to be called Snooker Nation 2019, is also releasing next week, and the coders apparently were behind the WSC series from years ago...............yes, the very same WSC guys. So this has me stumped, it will be interesting to know which talented coders from the WSC series are involved in Snooker 19 and/or Snooker Nation 2019.

For the record, I know for sure that Pool Nation/Snooker Nation/Sports Bar v2.0 VR, all from the "Nation" series, each of them had really convincing AI opponents in them, especially the most recent VR iteration that plays amazingly on my Oculus, Vive, Samsung Odyssey, and fairly well in PSVR too.

Lastly, "This is Snooker" being the other game coming out in this "Snooker games acting like Buses" scenario, I read its by the dodgy Pure Pool coders (and I only say dodgy due to the AI stinking the place out in Pure Pool, it had great garphics and the physics to me were lovely, just the AI were basic as hell and didnt know what sidespin was....).

Lets hope Stephen Hendry wont end up regretting where he lay his hat on this one...

Btw I still remember in 1989 waiting patiently for Jimmy White's Cueball to be released on the Amiga...........felt intense in the build up to that release!!!


Dazzer (highest snooker break in real life 78)
 
dazzer169 said:
I didn't realize at the time it was Lab42 that are the coders, they are of course the guys behind the coding of the WSC series (**), which had great (in my opinion) AI in the game, very realistic for the time (2003 - 2011 I recall)......so lets hope this delivers, it looks great, will have great physics, and hopefully will have WSC ++ AI in it.
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Hope so, the AI will be crucial for me. They've got to be at least reasonably believable and distinct from one another.

First gameplay video I've seen, showing a whole frame from in career mode match -
Looks ok. AI missed fairly difficult shots, and I think even played a safety shot @8:12, which is promising.

Physics looks really good.

Atmosphere? Hard to tell - there are a least a few ambient sounds and occasional applause. Also very sparse audience at this minor tournament. Will be intrigued to see if there's more atmosphere at finals or larger tournaments.

The guy was playing as Ken Doherty yet there were a couple of occasions where he was lining up a shot and you could see Ken Doherty sitting in his chair.

I don't like not being able to play the shot whilst your head is down looking down the cue. I hope there is an option to play shots this way.
 
My first match on Snooker 19, me playing very badly against the AI (on Hard Ranks 1-20). The animations and presentation are not brilliant but on the table it is excellent with the ball physics, spin etc exactly as I would expect it to be. I am not to bothered about the animations not being brilliant because gameplay is very promising:

 
normazimuth said:
Hope so, the AI will be crucial for me. They've got to be at least reasonably believable and distinct from one another.

First gameplay video I've seen, showing a whole frame from in career mode match -
Looks ok. AI missed fairly difficult shots, and I think even played a safety shot @8:12, which is promising.

Physics looks really good.

Atmosphere? Hard to tell - there are a least a few ambient sounds and occasional applause. Also very sparse audience at this minor tournament. Will be intrigued to see if there's more atmosphere at finals or larger tournaments.

The guy was playing as Ken Doherty yet there were a couple of occasions where he was lining up a shot and you could see Ken Doherty sitting in his chair.

I don't like not being able to play the shot whilst your head is down looking down the cue. I hope there is an option to play shots this way.
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Great find with the gameplay video.

The gameplay looks fantastic to me - but I have to say, the animations are absolutely shocking. Li Yuan is punching himself in the face when using the rest for the long pots, it looks *appalling* on that front (let alone the cue ending in one position after a shot, then teleporting to a different position when they're moving away from the table)...

Really disappointed with the animations - hoping they'll patch it a little bit...
 
kamy100 said:
My first match on Snooker 19, me playing very badly against the AI (on Hard Ranks 1-20). The animations and presentation are not brilliant but on the table it is excellent with the ball physics, spin etc exactly as I would expect it to be. I am not to bothered about the animations not being brilliant because gameplay is very promising:

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You should have gone for a safety shot at 15:00! :PIRATE:
Cheers for the video. Looks a bit rough. Shoulder tech not really up to snuff. Animations a bit of a laugh all in all. Commentary limited. What most irks me though, is that dreadful screen transition between shots. A simple crossfade or some Star Wars-y screen wipe would look better. Anything other than these grey things closing together.
Edit: An earlier video has a much better transition between shots. Maybe they differ between game modes. But why they would leave such an ugly one in there is beyond me
 
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kamy100 said:
My first match on Snooker 19, me playing very badly against the AI (on Hard Ranks 1-20). The animations and presentation are not brilliant but on the table it is excellent with the ball physics, spin etc exactly as I would expect it to be. I am not to bothered about the animations not being brilliant because gameplay is very promising:
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The player animations are the least important thing to me.

Have you found any of the AI players are naturally more cautious, playing lots of safety shots with the cue ball returning to baulk? In the videos I've seen, the only safety I've seen the AI play are a couple of very soft shots, rolling the cue ball onto the object ball. I hope they don't all just go for pots all the time, with the lesser players being more likely to miss.

Have you tried a match against Peter Ebdon yet to see if he takes ages over every shot and then just plays safe anyway?
 
Don't like what I see in this video. The AI (Ronnie) doesn't miss a single pot, no matter the difficulty. Exactly what I feared about the AI being little more than the perfect execution of maths whenever it wants to be. Can you imagine playing Ronnie in the World Championship Final and he never misses single pot, beating you 18-0.

And the only safety shots are more of these little tiddlers, not a single one back to baulk.

Maybe they'll fix some of these issue with patches but right now, I'm glad I've not pre-ordered this.

 
As far as I can tell from the videos I've seen so far, I think the difficulty levels relate directly to the rank of the player, so hard = the top 20 players, medium = those ranked 21-60 and easy=61-128.

In other words, you can't play Ronnie on easy level because his ranking determines that he is hard. I might be wrong.
 
Here is another video from a career mode match, apologies for the poor colour I think because it was on my 4K TV with HDR on it didn't record as it should. As for AI, when playing someone who is easy rank (60 and below) they do make plenty of mistakes, but it is true that the higher ranked opponents make very few mistakes. What I would say that both positives and negatives we shouldn't make a real judgements as clearly this is a pre-release version of the game, we got it early but with a release day patch due to drop on Wednesday that is time to judge.

Anyway career mode match, I made a crucial mistake when ahead and was made to pay:

 
I would like to see someone play a safety shot where the AI actually needs a couple of cushions to get out of it.
 
I've asked the devs if they'll be collecting feedback and if so, how they're looking to collect it:


If you have the game and there's something a bit rubbish, please take a video of it, trimming it to 30s max (otherwise it could be dismissed and/or they just won't watch it) and please tweet them about it (including @Snooker19Game too)!
 
dazzer169 said:
I was assuming the publisher were using the same coders as Pure Pool, I didn't realize at the time it was Lab42 that are the coders, they are of course the guys behind the coding of the WSC series (**), which had great (in my opinion) AI in the game, very realistic for the time (2003 - 2011 I recall)......so lets hope this delivers, it looks great, will have great physics, and hopefully will have WSC ++ AI in it.

(**) One slightly puzzling thing is that I have seen that the 3rd new Snooker game coming out, an update of Pool Nations's Snooker derivative "Snooker Nation", now to be called Snooker Nation 2019, is also releasing next week, and the coders apparently were behind the WSC series from years ago...............yes, the very same WSC guys. So this has me stumped, it will be interesting to know which talented coders from the WSC series are involved in Snooker 19 and/or Snooker Nation 2019.

For the record, I know for sure that Pool Nation/Snooker Nation/Sports Bar v2.0 VR, all from the "Nation" series, each of them had really convincing AI opponents in them, especially the most recent VR iteration that plays amazingly on my Oculus, Vive, Samsung Odyssey, and fairly well in PSVR too.
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Quoting this post again, having seen this gameplay video of the new Snooker Nation 19:


If Snooker Nation 19 does have some association with the WSC series, then I hope the good guys from WSC are the ones that worked on Snooker 19 because the AI in this doesn't look great.

And the physics is not at all convincing for a snooker table - the cushions are dead like a pool table in a pub and the cloth speed is way too slow. It's very reminiscent of the Pure Pool snooker add-on. Even the background ambient noises remind me of Pure Pool, with the distant sound of chatter and laughter like it's in a bar, even though there's a visible hushed audience in the auditorium. It is cheap, at £7.50, but I feel I already have this game in the form of Pure Pool + Snooker add-on.

So here's hoping the good AI turns up in Snooker 19, to match its excellent looking physics. Very interested to see how the day 1 patch works out.

I hope we don't end up in a situation like football games, where there are some great features in each, but they're both let down by clear weaknesses, and what we really want is a combination of the best bits from each.
 
normazimuth said:
Quoting this post again, having seen this gameplay video of the new Snooker Nation 19:


If Snooker Nation 19 does have some association with the WSC series, then I hope the good guys from WSC are the ones that worked on Snooker 19 because the AI in this doesn't look great.

And the physics is not at all convincing for a snooker table - the cushions are dead like a pool table in a pub and the cloth speed is way too slow. It's very reminiscent of the Pure Pool snooker add-on. Even the background ambient noises remind me of Pure Pool, with the distant sound of chatter and laughter like it's in a bar, even though there's a visible hushed audience in the auditorium. It is cheap, at £7.50, but I feel I already have this game in the form of Pure Pool + Snooker add-on.

So here's hoping the good AI turns up in Snooker 19, to match its excellent looking physics. Very interested to see how the day 1 patch works out.

I hope we don't end up in a situation like football games, where there are some great features in each, but they're both let down by clear weaknesses, and what we really want is a combination of the best bits from each.
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I've got Snooker Nation 19 on the Xbox and it's terrible IMO. Largely because it's buggy as hell, granted (the amount of times I'd play a tournament game, it'd end, I'd quit to the dashboard and when I reloaded the game later on to continue, it'd load a practice table where I'm playing myself and tell me that if I quit, I'd forfeit my tournament progress).

But more than that, the AI is weird, the players are fake, the career mode is non-existent (just a few tournaments) and it's a terrible package from a terrible company (they did a pool game previous to this that included a snooker mode, and it took me emailing them back and forth for them to fix the rules - originally you could just pot a red if there wasn't a colour on)...
 
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