Just a note: Virtual Pool 2 and 3, both released 16+ years ago, remain the best physics simulation for all billiard games, snooker included. They used to offer a money-back guarantee if it didn't improve your actual play, and as a long-time high-level pool player I can confirm that that goofy promise was very well-founded. The company, Celeris, released Virtual Pool for mobile that was pretty solid, but the old PC games remain the gold standard, and in my view the best simulation of anything in a game.
What about Virtual Pool 4? I'm definitely a sucker for a good billiards game but haven't been sure which route to go. Is that worth it?
#touchingball
The physics model is the same but the menus and UI are super low-rent and awkward (although they were never great). There's just something about it that feels kinda cheap and bad compared to the earlier games. You can get demos of both at the dev's site, so see for yourself http://www.celeris.com/celeris_games.html
Also part of the key of the VP series is that you stroke by drawing the mouse back and forth, which lets you control speed in a way that is very comfortable and analogous to an actual pool stroke, once you get your mouse sensitivity dialed in. As a ridiculous bonus, since it's just mouse y-axis that controls the stroke, someone released a controller that you could slide an actual cue through, and I bought it. It was bad.
Just a note: Virtual Pool 2 and 3, both released 16+ years ago, remain the best physics simulation for all billiard games, snooker included. They used to offer a money-back guarantee if it didn't improve your actual play, and as a long-time high-level pool player I can confirm that that goofy promise was very well-founded. The company, Celeris, released Virtual Pool for mobile that was pretty solid, but the old PC games remain the gold standard, and in my view the best simulation of anything in a game.
But the funny thing is that this isn't an across the board issue for software development. Actually, the opposite is true. Most tech companies I've seen (and I've been fortunate to work with many) have put an emphasis on work/life balance. Even if the hours are long, I've seen team yoga breaks, catered lunches, nap rooms, and every other stereotype people see on Silicon Valley. In talking to people at these companies the swing towards happier workers with healthier lifestyles is for 2 reasons: 1) these companies are competing for developers and 2) workers who are engaged care more about their work and are more productive.
This is a redefining of work/life balance though. All those things expand work's control over your time without reducing the hours or increasing wages. Not that they aren't fine/nice in a practical sense, but they don't solve much.
Dan/Drake story is amazing but I'm 1h19m in and they haven't introduced the ladies sitting just off set and that is really really uncomfortable. Particularly when they bring in Rich Gallup on while still ignoring them...
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