World Snooker Championship

To be truly great at a sport is surely an exceptional feeling. There must be nothing better than having ultimate mastery of a physical endeavour's finer points, and to understand and implement amazing tactics while relying on an innate, honed skill

And for snooker, a sport that relies on skill, sportsmanship, and patience – plus a fairly good grasp of geometry and hustling – that must be incredibly satisfying.

What a crushing disappointment, then, that in World Snooker Championship you feel none of that power. A dull take on a very good console and PC title (see our PSP review), the mobile game puts you behind the cue as you face off against opponents of increasing talent, but rather than a snooker champ, you're left feeling like a chump who's been hustled for a few quid.

For a start, the game looks a mess. Close-up, the 3D engine just about gets away with its rendering of a six-hole snooker table. Yet when the balls are knocking together in the distance it could be square polygons having sex rather than spheres clashing, given the low level of detail. Meanwhile, the semi-circle at the end of the table isn't circular – it's square.

The dodgy visuals are matched by the naff audio. Aside from one looping sample from the theme tune to the BBC's Snooker coverage (that's 1972's Drag Racer by Doug Wood, fact fans), all you'll hear is the one hideous clacking noise that plays when the balls touch, no matter what their velocity or trajectory.

Okay, so this is mobile – you can't expect PlayStation 3 quality 3D graphics and Surround Sound. And indeed, such problems would be tolerable if the actual gameplay didn't frustrate so much.

Firstly, the camera is weirdly fixed around the cue ball, meaning you're tethered to one spot. Given the uneven quality of the graphics engine, that makes it tough to line up shots. And the dotted line guide that shows your ball's potential trajectory in fact loses its precision, making a lot of shots as much a mix of guesswork and luck as they are skill.

Plus, every stroke requires you to choose where you hit the ball, the aim, the angle of the cue, and how much power to put behind it. After a while this four-menu mechanic becomes a pretty tedious.

These flaws are all the more annoying because there are a fair few extras included in the game, that would have extended the playing time – if you actually wanted to extend it. The Quick Match function lets you have a speedy game without worrying about a frame-intensive championship, while Trick Shots offer you five taxing shot-based challenges, and a pass-the-phone two-player mode doubles up the action for you and a mate.

But really, why will you want to bother when the core mechanics of the game don't hold your interest? The attempt to condense the finer points of snooker down to mobile form is admirable, but the result here ultimately just doesn't engage.

So, while it's not quite amateurish, World Snooker Championship is most definitely a rookie, offering you a game that seemingly means well, but looks like a wannabe rather than a professional. We suggest you turn to the Silver award-winning Ronnie O'Sullivan Snooker instead.