Pool Nation FX: Xbox One, Review

The sport of pool, the one where you have to hit red or yellow (or solids and striped) balls into the pockets on a billiards table, is exciting on its own, but it’s incredibly hard to get right as a console game. Pool Nation FX, the free game for Xbox One owners last month, is proof of that.

I don’t usually gripe about games, as I try to see the best as well as the sloppy in all titles, but Pool Nation FX is just a mess. Ok, it’s not that big of a mess, but if you have played other pool titles on Xbox One, this one has just enough to annoy you.

Pure Pool, another Xbox One title, was released for the console a while back and where it served as a relaxing activity with your friends, Pool Nation FX destroys that notion.

The game bills itself as “the ultimate Pool Simulator” but its turns out that it is more about the flash and fan-fair than anything else. There is a regular “tournament mode” where you can play against other players, but the heart of it is in trick shots.

While that sounds exciting, it is so difficult to pull off (even the easy setting for regular games) that you will be throwing your virtual pool cue through the television. But with that said, it does have one thing going for it: it has really good graphics for a studio that is pretty much unknown. It does try to take on a different angle than regular pool games, but making it too difficult had me uninstalling the title right after I wrote this review.

6.5/10

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