Mick Waites: Trying to build a convincing pub environment on a DS is tough, because you go home and play a game on your PC or Wii or 360 in the evening and the graphics are so lush it makes your DS work look rough. And even worse, if we’re looking at all the DS players and how they might view Pool, it’s pretty obvious that they aren’t all seeing pool the way that lads in the pub would.
So, we stepped back and started to look at the DS. It’s a beautiful little machine, which looks really modern without being pretentious. And it’s sitting in the hands of everyone from students to kids to mums to lads to old-school gamers. Once we took that approach we very swiftly came up with something very fresh.
We have a game that takes a well known subject and puts it into people’s palms, which makes it really fresh, and gives players the freedom to explore and play the game however they’d wish to. That’s pretty satisfying.
SPOnG: What different game modes and options can we expect to play and fiddle around to get the best pool experience?
Mick Waites: Wow! Where do I start? Obviously there are the usual three rule sets – UK 8 Ball, US 8 Ball and US 9 Ball. On top of those we have 3 Ball, 6 Ball, 10 Ball, Rotation and Straight Pool. All of these can be played on any of the 7 different table shapes (including triangular and L shaped).
There is a Tournament mode with 4 different trophies to win and a Challenge mode in which you have 16 table layouts each with their own unique goals such as “Pot all balls within X shots” and “Move all three yellows in a single shot but don’t move any reds”. This mode is great for honing your cueing skills and working out your angles around the tables. Just for good measure there is also a Practise mode, which allows you to play a frame without any rules or opponents.
Mick Waites: Again, where do I start? We wanted to make sure 8Ball was both competitive and social so multi-player was of great importance to us and as a result we have a lot of options. You can play 2-player with just one DS or with two systems and one copy of the game.
Once you have more DS systems and copies of the game, you can play 1vs1 or a 2vs2 team game. When playing over the Nintendo WiFi Connection, we made the decision to restrict the options to 1vs1 playing on the standard three rule sets. This is to ensure that players should always be able to find opponents wanting to play the same game as them.
The Nintendo WFC mode works as a ‘Winner Stays On’ game. For each successive game, more credits are added to a prize pot. After you win, you can choose to walk with the pot, play the same challenger again or find a new challenger. If you play on, the amount added to the pot increases but you risk losing it all.
All wireless multi-player games support a chat messaging system that allows you to send pre-written chat messages to your opponents, regardless of what language they speak.
SPOnG: Do you feel there is a danger of players missing your title due to a potential saturation of Nintendo DS titles? Was this the case when supporting the PS2?
Mick Waites: There is always a danger of titles being overlooked if there are a lot of other titles available but 8Ball Allstars stands out for its quality, playability and feature set - all of which surpass other DS Pool titles. If you want to play Pool on your DS, there is no other choice.
Mick Waites: A number of AI characters, table shapes, table colours and environments are initially locked but can be “bought” using credits won by playing through the Tournaments and playing on-line.
SPOnG: What games other than your own projects are you looking forward to this year?
Mick Waites: I’m counting the days to Mario Party 8. I’m also very keen to see Nintendo’s other big releases reach our shores this year - Metroid Prime Corruption, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Super Paper Mario... I’m interested in this Hydrophobia; I’ve been very impressed with the claims made about the game, both technically and also with the gameplay. As much as I am impressed with dazzling technical effects, I feel that gameplay outweighs everything. WarioWare on the GBA proved that, perfectly.
Thank you for your time Mick – be sure to keep an eye on 8Ball Allstars when it rolls onto the Nintendo DS table soon.