Sharkey's 3D Pool

Billiards on a monitor with a processor that calculates more than it should. Sharkey's 3D Pool comes from the era when simulating anything on PC meant wrestling with the hardware itself — and here we're simulating the physics that unfolds on a pool table. Year 1990, MS-DOS, and you've got a white ball, colored balls, and the feeling that it's somewhere between arcade and reality.

It's a computer billiards simulation — a goal as old as the game itself, you just need to sink the right balls in the right sequence, play it smart and keep that white ball clean. Sharkey tries to be realistic — angles, force, air friction, bounces off the cushion. Everything calculated digitally, which in 1990 was no small feat. The graphics are laid-back, simple 3D built from lines and colors, so you navigate without problems. It's not beautiful, but it's clear.

Gameplay revolves around a set of mechanics — you see the table from above, adjust your angle and shot power, then watch the balls roll. The controls aren't as snappy as you'd like, but they work. You can play against the computer or with a friend, individual rounds aren't long, so it's perfect for quick sessions. The physics is simplified, but it holds together — when you need to account for a bounce off a distant rail, you see why you shouldn't argue with it.

Back in the nineties it was that kind of fun — a computer game that really tried to nail physics behavior, and for good reason. Sharkey's still considered a decent simulator for its time, precisely because the creators actually attempted it. Today it's obviously limited — modern engines can do billiards with millimeter precision and video-quality effects. Sharkey aged, but not shabby.

If you want to recall how simple it looked — and how surprisingly fun it was even in that simplicity — Sharkey's 3D Pool can still run in DOSBox or you can find something similar to play in your browser. It's not a game for today's graphics junkies, but for people who think — and feel how balls move right. That's the appeal."