“Side Pocket” Is The Billiards Video Game You Never Knew You Wanted.
Back in ye older days of child Golden Cartage, I would at times go to a relative’s house to visit. In their basement was a Pool/Billiards table. In my very young eyes, owning a pool table was something the cool kids always had. The idea of Pool/Billiards always fascinated me as a kid as any game where you hit a ball with a stick to hit other balls in holes would. My family was not fortunate at the time to own one of these cool tables. We would later in my years get a pool table but that’s besides the point.
So what’s a 90s kid to do when they don’t have a pool table to play on? Well do I have the video game for you! Let me talk to you all about a little gem of a game known as Side Pocket.
Side Pocket, made by Data East back in 1986 is a top down pocket billiards game in arcades. However I would not know about it until seeing the port of the game on the SEGA Genesis years later in 1992. The SEGA Genesis version was the one I remember playing back then so I’ll mostly be talking about that port of the game. Don’t worry Super Nintendo fans, there was a port of this game for the SNES as well.
Anyway, like I said, Side Pocket is a top down view pool game where you play pool, thanks to the power of modern gaming, as modern as 1992 will allow. The idea of poll is simple, hit the cue ball (that’s the white ball) with a Cue stick and hit other balls into the holes in the corners of the table and in the middle on the walls known as side pockets, ohhhh that’s why it’s called… nevermind. There are many ways to play pool with different rulesets.
In the Genesis version of Side Pocket, you can play standard play, 2 player 9-ball, and a trick shot mode. The main mode has you going to different cities to clean pool tables with you needing to get a high enough score to go to the next area. Simple as that. Each level adds more balls. Miss a shot and you lose a ball, lose all your balls and you lose the level. Hitting all the balls in the numbered order will get you a pretty sweet score bonus. Some shots, one of your pockets will have a star on it and hitting into said star will get you a bonus. There’s also a “zone” hole for when you are down to one ball left to clear. Going into this enters a special stage where the next shot must get that final ball into a corner or side pocket.
Gameplay itself is very easy to get the hang of. You have a line that shows where your ball will go and you can angle your shot. Even angle it where you can shoot your cue ball in the air for a coolness factor and nothing else. This is much more helpful in the trick shot mode, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Just know that it’s cool, what other reason do you need? You then adjust your power and you shoot. Pretty simple.
As you play the single player mode, you will get challenge stages where you have to do. Some have obstacles blocking your way or holes that you can NOT hit in. Look at this as kind of a puzzle mode and find out what you need to do to get that perfect shot in order to complete it. There’s also a trick shot mode that is nothing but these trick shot challenges. Possibly the high point of the game.
The game’s music also is a highlight of this game, going for a soft chill jazz theme that gives you that gentlemen's club feel. It’s like you’re going out to a fancy bar to play some pool, minus that cigarette smoke in the air. Hearing both Genesis and SNES soundtracks, I feel like the Genesis style fits better in what the game is going for. Genesis music always had that… flavor to its sound and it shows here.
The single player is quite fast to beat. A player that knows what he’s doing can beat the game in a little under an hour. It’s a simple game but a fun one, especially with a 2nd player.
The game would get a sequel in 1995, but you might not find it that easily as in the US it’s not called “Side Pocket 2” (was in Japan). It was renamed and titled “Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend”. The game adds a story mode and has much faster and smoother gameplay. Sadly this game was kind of overlooked as you can only make a pool simulator so appealing to a gaming audience. The game also had a SEGA Saturn port with full video cutscenes and let me say, these have aged both well and awful depending on if you are a sicko for “so bad it’s good” content. These have the bad B-Movie acting and all.
A third game in the series called Side Pocket 3 was released but only in Japan for the Saturn and Sony PlayStation. Side Pocket 3 was in a full out 3D environment but can still be played in that classic top down style. This also had a story mode along with tons of different poll rulesets to play. Side Pocket 3 ended up being the final game of the Side Pocket series. Likely did not do well as the game came out on Saturn in Japan on July of 1997. To give you an idea of that time, Final Fantasy VII was out by that point and GoldenEye 007 was due out a month later, so it’s kind of easy to see how a pool game simply would not catch the eye of the late 90s gamer. Not to mention this was starting to be around the time where the Sega Saturn was on the way out, and the Dreamcast would be coming up soon. A case of too little too late unfortunately.
Overall Side Pocket is a fun and simple game. It scratches the 90s itch of wanting to play pool but never having a pool table available. In retrospect it’s really nothing exciting and is a pretty niche game that I would not recommend if you are not into the game of pool. One of those games where it was understandable and surprisingly fun in 1992 and not so much today.
