This isn’t the kind of pool party you’re thinking of.  Control a billiard ball as you roll and bounce other players in sports themed mini-games, including pool of course.  This madcap, pick up and play multiplayer game for up to four is available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

There are two modes: Local Play and Tournament, but they both seemed the same to me.  You pick your pool ball and customize its color and style and then you can pick from several events.  Up to four can play at the same time and you can assign as many CPU bots as you want.  Controls in all the games are pretty much the same.  Roll around with the control stick and kick with one button and dash roll with the other.  When you dash roll, you can hold the button down to aim, too.  Here are the events that you can choose from:

Party

In this one you play a bunch of the mini-games in a row and whoever reaches a certain amount of points first after a few rounds, wins.  You can also play each game separately below.

Pool

Roll around on a pool table and knock the balls of your color into holes for points.

Free For All

This one’s also played on a pool table, but instead of knocking balls into holes, you’re pushing the other players into them!

Football

It’s Soccer to us Americans.  Roll and kick the ball into the opponent’s goal.

Tennis

More or less like Pong, really.

Idol

When holding the idol, you get points, but if another player touches you, they get the idol.  Try to hold onto it the longest by the end of the time limit.

Jinxed

Kind of the opposite of Idol.  Touch another player to ‘curse’ them, and try not to be cursed when time is up.

Sumo

Push the other players off a circular stage to win.  Watch out because every so often, the outer layer of the stage will disappear and it’ll get smaller!

And those are all the games!  Only problem I had with this one is that there could’ve been more to it, and for some reason the game had no sound.  Might be a bug they could patch, but it was an awfully quiet game!  But if you need a simple pick up and play multiplayer romp, this one does the job just fine.

Kid Factor:

Pool Party is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  You bump around billiard balls with eyes and push them off ledges and that’s it.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.

Tags: Game Reviews