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Jimmy White summers in Pool Paradise

Legendary stick man contributes to Archer Maclean's pool sim as chief advisor. A sort of Spock for snooker physics.

Britsoft developer Ignition has announced that Jimmy White has resumed his old school collaboration with top development bod Archer Maclean on the forthcoming Pool Paradise, revealing that the legendary clack-man worked as pool advisor during the game's development. White first worked with Maclean on Whirlwind Snooker back in '91.

"Over the years I have watched Archer and the team develop increasingly amazing looking games, and with Pool Paradise, I think we have created the ultimate ball and cue game - it doesn't get any more realistic," he said to somebody who subsequently told us what he said. "I have been asked to ensure that the game feels right in every respect, from the physics of the balls to the sound of a 'kick' - and the addition opportunity to create tables and rule sets that could never exist in real life makes Pool Paradise an essential game for anyone with even a passing interest in the sport."

Indeed, White has nothing but praise for Archer Maclean's latest, and his first endorsement in a while: "I'm really enjoying my game at the moment and working with Archer again has proved a good laugh," he revealed last week. "Pool Paradise really is the mutt's nuts when it comes to pool games. Me and my kids have seen some of the other games available and Pool Paradise really is the only one worthy of carrying my game."

The idea behind Pool Paradise (besides playing pool, obviously) is that you arrive on an island and have to earn some cash by working your way up the pool ranks, placing side bets, unlocking hidden areas and so on. The game requires players to master all manner of variations on the usual pub game - UK, US, eight ball, nine ball, and new rule sets devised by the team like Switchball. Stunt (trick) tables also come into it.

Pool Paradise is due out on April 2nd on PC, PS2 and Cube. As reported here recently, the GBA 3D Pool title also in development at Ignition has been placed on the back burner while the team gets Pool Paradise ready to ship. You can see how they've done for yourselves thanks to another batch of screenshots of the PS2 and Cube versions.