If you thought that doing pool trick shots were hard, try doing it with a joystick. That must have been the mindset of Imagic, the publisher of the Trick Shot game for the Atari 2600. I guess programming a complete pool game from scratch would have been too complex, too much trouble, or both. Either way, we are left with a billiards game that is somewhat of an unusual find for the Atari 2600.
The Trick Shot game is what you would expect. A bunch of balls are on the table, and you need to sink all of them at once. As a young kid, this was confusing and boring. As an adult, my viewpoint had changed completely. Personally, I can’t shoot pool worth a damn. I am that person that can’t even push the stick straight enough to hit the ball with force. However, a video game like Trick Shot lets me shoot pool incognito, with the lights out and the blinds drawn.
Trick Shot was published by Imagic, which lasted a full five years before the industry crashed. Before then, they were a talented team that made some pretty sweet games. So you know this Trick Shot game has the goods. If you are an Atari 2600 game collector, this is a classy game to keep in your stack that won’t make you look like a dork. It is easy to find, cheap to buy
Playing pool can be dangerous – but not in the way you might think. You won’t lose a finger or an eye, but you might lose your dignity when your friend beats you with a high-stakes trick shot. That’s right – you might be the top dog until the very end, when you mess up and hand the win to your opponent. It’s not just losing your dignity that you need to worry about. You also run the risk of accidentally poking your eye out with the pool stick, leaving you literally “blind” to the game. And let’s not forget the ever-present danger of a rogue pool ball flying off the table and hitting you square in the scrotum. It may sound like a joke, but these risks are all too real.