Top Shot Pool arrives on PS5 promising to deliver the definitive digital pool experience -precise, stylish, competitive, and apparently capable of transforming your living room into a bustling billiards hall minus the sticky carpets. Unfortunately, what you actually get feels more like playing pool on a table someone assembled using guesswork and mild optimism.
Gaming Heaven
To give credit where it’s due, the game looks pleasant enough. Balls are shiny, tables are clean (a novelty for anyone who has played in a real British pub), and the interface is simple enough that even a confused houseplant could probably navigate it. The physics, on rare occasions, behave reasonably. Everything is very much as you would expect to find.
Gaming Hell
Controls, while “intuitive” in theory, regularly misjudge power or direction, leading to shots you definitely didn’t take responsibility for. The adaptive AI swings wildly between baffling incompetence and sudden omnipotence, as though it’s flipping a coin every turn to decide whether it’ll pot the black perfectly or forget how hands work.
The game’s presentation tries desperately to evoke the charm of a real pool hall, but instead delivers the atmosphere of a sports bar that ran out of budget halfway through.
Final Judgement
Top Shot Pool might scratch a brief itch for digital cue sports, but its inconsistent physics, frustrating controls, and lack of meaningful depth leave it feeling more like a budget distraction than the “ultimate” experience it claims to be. In short: a missable shot, even on a wide-open table.
