To help ease the lockdown strain on snooker fans, WST has announced plans to play out a virtual version of this year’s World Snooker Championship. It’ll take place across the 17 days originally pencilled in for the actual tournament, but will feature a number of the console games top players from around the globe.



A lot of you may be relatively unfamiliar with Snooker19. You will have undoubtedly heard the name dotted around on Twitter but likely haven’t played the game itself. So, before you chalk up your virtual cue, let’s take a look at the game.



Firstly, we need to set the scene and point out that this is the first officially licensed snooker game since the WCS Real 2011 game on PS3 and Xbox 360. The announcement came rather out of the blue at last years flagship event, and the promo spiel promised a fully licensed simulation of the current calendar – including licensing for all arenas and 128 players on tour. It sounded like the perfect post Crucible blues crusher, and a great way of engaging a new, younger audience.

The Crucible – Snooker19

So, how does it stack up? The gameplay itself is complex enough and reflects just how hard the sport is. It’s easy to rattle balls in the pocket, and it’s even easier to run out of position and leave the cue ball in no-mans land. You’ll have to read the tables well and understand the exact amount of spin needed for each shot. It would be good to see some advancements to the aiming guides, as currently, I’d rather be faced with a straight-ish long red as opposed to a quarter-ball blue, but that’s a minor criticism.

Unfortunately, the gameplay and physics aren’t really the problem here. The main issues revolve around the overall experience – the look and feel of the game. If you’re not a regular gamer used to playing other sports titles, you’ll probably find Snooker19 a reasonably enjoyable experience. However, if you’ve played various sports games in the past, including previous snooker titles, I can’t imagine you’ll be revisiting the game too often.

Granted, as you’re rattling through a career mode as your favourite cueist, the sets, tables and balls all look really lifelike. The tournament structure follows the previous year’s calendar perfectly, and you’ll need to battle through qualifying rounds against lower opponents before taking on the big boys at the latter end of tournaments.

The players are all modelled within the game, but quite often the graphics look too clunky. Instead of focusing on each player individually, it seems they have a superimposed the head of each player on top of the same 34-inch waist player profile. Some of the lads on tour are a little larger, but they all look like they’ve been running cross country races with Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Shaun Murphy

None of the player carry over any of their real-life characteristics either. For instance, you’ll see Judd Trump abandon his ‘naughty snooker’ approach – instead opting to roll balls in dead-weight like Mark Williams. They all play in the same way, and if you put a paper bag over the head of your opponent, you’d have no idea who you were up against.

Players use rests in unrealistic scenarios, and whilst some of the more outlandish cases have been eradicated through patch updates, you’ll still see players opting to use a rest when they’d usually play with their weaker hand, over-stretch slightly or pop an extension on. It doesn’t feel right when Ronnie picks a rest up for a red he’d pot blindfolded with his left hand. It also doesn’t sit well when a player stands stationary after each shot holding rest and cue aloft as you wait for the ‘opponent turn’ loading triangle of doom to disappear. The experience around the table just feels too static to keep you fully engaged for hours on end.

Static Animations

The 2009 installment also features an MC who will introduce proceedings and welcome the players onto the baize. You’d also see the referee present in each frame, respotting the colours and keeping tally of the scores. In Snooker19, you won’t get this. Instead, the resident referee Brendan Moore seems to be overseeing the action from the players lounge – well out of sight. You won’t see the camera pan to a player’s opponent in their chair, and you’ll get no player reactions to any shots played. These are all features present in titles over a decade old.

The in-match atmosphere also lags behind their decade old counterpart too. The crowd noise is obviously fake, and the commentary input from Dave Hendon and Neil Foulds is too basic. I hadn’t really noticed this until i’d revisited the old titles where John Virgo would offer some (occasionally mistimed) anecdotal commentary. The 2009 edition has the crowd reacting to the on-table action with cheers and gasps, but on Snooker19 your shots will all too often fall upon silence from both the crowd and commentary team.

WCS Real 2009 – cameraman, referee and walk on features

The points mention above ultimately leave Snooker19 feeling a little soulless. The game passes as a simulation of the sport itself, but lacks the finesse of a title which captures the imagination of virtual players. Adding simple animations into the game would go such a long way to engrossing fans new and old, and it’s a real shame Snooker19 doesn’t live up to the bill here. Hopefully, Snooker20 (if there is one) will rectify this.