Although it won't send you into fits of cue-stick kendo a la Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise) in The Color of Money, the game nevertheless has its merits.  Sporting a well-balanced opponent AI, a good variety of traditional and new game styles, and a simple-but-fun-multiplayer system, Sierra Sports Maximum Pool offers an entertaining and challenging experience for newbie and casual gamers alike.

What Maximum Pool lacks in zip it makes up for with colorful, creative pool tables, photo-realistic pool balls, and a nice variety of gameplay options.  The interface looks like puffy candy, but it's easy to adjust to, and after you get addicted to going round after round of Eight Ball, you'll appreciate how the interface is designed to scoot you right back into your next game.  Some of the traditional games you can choose from are:  Cutthroat, Nine Ball, Rotation, and for old-fashioned billiards fans, Snooker and Carom.  The creative new game styles developed for Maximum Pool are: 

• 24 Cents:  The balls are worth coin values; you have to be the first either to get 24 cents exactly, or the first to go over 50 cents.
• Chameleon Ball:  An especially enjoyable game that requires you to strike neutral balls to make them match your ball in color, or turn your opponents balls back to neutral, so that whoever sinks the most balls of their own color wins.
• Mad Bomber:  Play on a cross-shaped table trying to sink balls in a center pocket.  Some of the balls turn into bombs upon being struck by the cue ball.  If these bombs are sunk before they explode, they're worth additional points.  Otherwise, they explode off the table, taking nearby balls with them.
• Poker:  Two racks of balls are marked as playing cards.  You gather and discard the contents of your hand as you sink the balls.
• Rocket Ball:  A relatively easy game, in which some of the balls blast off upon being struck, knocking around the other balls on the table, possible sinking some of them, until the rocket balls themselves are sunk.

The most enjoyable aspect of Maximum Pool, however, has to be the multiplayer feature.  While Sierra Sports is still in the testing phases of making every game style available, playing Eight Ball against live opponents enhances Maximum Pool's re-playability, not to mention the challenge and satisfaction you get per game.  On the other hand, the single-player opponent AI is strong, too, offering varied levels of difficulty and a good mix good luck/ability vs. bad luck/ineptitude.  I never got mad when the supposedly handicapped computer opponent went on a tear after one of my blown shots, sinking every remaining ball on the table, no matter how difficult the angles, because I knew that I'd probably win the next game, or the one after that.

Despite all that Maximum Pool has going for it, the game does have a few noteworthy shortcomings.  I did appreciate the opponent AI, although the opponent selection was somewhat limited (5 possible, including one dog, named Buddy).  Also, you can select how often the live-action headshot of each opponent comes on the screen to congratulate, console, or tease you.  Because of their repetitiveness, I turned that feature all the way down.  I would have much rather had 3D cartoon-animated visible opponents throughout the games, instead of the invisible cue-stick strokers.  Speaking of seeing more of the action than just the cue sticks and the pool tables, I found the multi-camera system to be clunky and insufficient.  It was often hard to get the right view angle for my shots, even though in real life such positioning would've been a cinch.  Also, the game lets you take some shots that, in real life, would either require a bridge, or would be impossible, such as when the cue ball is squeezed between two balls in the middle of the table, one of which you're supposed to be shooting at.  Also, a major scratch against the game is its lack of a physics-based shot-mapping system, such as what's found in the much older Virtual Pool, by Interplay.  That last drawback is what makes me feel this pool-funpack game is not really intended for die-hard pool fans.

Even though little documentation is provided, Sierra Sports Maximum Pool is a bit easy to master once you've figured out how to use the ricochet-result indicators, and I feel it wouldn't hold the attention of pool afficionados for long.  Because of the neat shot-location feature, however (you can aim at different parts of the cue ball for making trick shots or just putting on a little English), I think the game would be fun and challenging for just about everybody else.  The Internet-play options are smooth and well-designed (there's already ladder support for rankings), the graphics are relatively impressive, and the AI system for single-player play runs on a variety of settings wide enough to keep most players racking 'em up game after game.

Install:  Easy  
The installation, thankfully, is the least challenging aspect of the game.  Pop the disc in, select your file location, and let the game install itself.  It even detects whether you have the latest DirectX version and will offer to install it if you don't.

Gameplay:  7.3
Variety and color make the game fun to approach, and a relatively smooth, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn interface makes it fun to play.  Still, a shot-map feature is a must for any pool game, and Sierra Sports Maximum Pool dropped the ball here.  Also, since there's no 360º walk-around view, some of the shot angles are difficult to view properly.

Graphics:  9
The photo-realistic balls are the best I've seen in a pool game.  The cue-ball cue-positioning ball at the top of the screen is strikingly real-looking.  The game is vibrantly colored throughout, and I especially liked the coloration of the new-style games, with each one looking significantly different enough to stand out in my memory.  The only major graphical drawback was the lack of on-screen character avatars in either the single-player or multiplayer games.

Sound:  7.8
Despite its somewhat generic quality, the poppy, circusy music is easy to listen to and doesn't distract you from the game or break up your concentration.  It is a little repetitive, but you can always turn it down.  Same goes for the recorded voices for each of the five single-player opponents:  they make your opponents seem real, but they're too repetitive.  It would've been nice to hear some taunts online, too.  Sound effects were sharp:  the crack of the cue ball against the racked set, the bounces of the balls off each other, and even the crazy added sound effects for the new-style games, such as the explosions of the Mad Bomber balls.  More crazy sounds were added for the menus and for when you accidentally knock balls off the table, but I could have foregone those for some regular ambient pool-hall sounds.

Difficulty:  8.4.
A good opponent AI and the difficulties and pleasures posed by the multiplayer features help top off this category.  The game is more pasty than slick, however, and therefore a little too easy.  Too easy to learn, that is.  What I mean is, there doesn't seem to be much more you can do other than aim and shoot, despite the game variety.  After a while, that does get a little tedious or artificially challenging (finessing your aim is sometimes harder in the game than it is in real life).  A good aiming system is provided, though, whereby you place your target up against the ball you want to smack and some flashing lights go out at a 90º angle, indicating where your cue ball will go and where the target ball will go.  This is fun for aiming and setting yourself up for other shots, and also for setting up your opponent with a more difficult shot.  The online play makes shooting a little more difficult by shortening the distance of the targeting system, meaning aiming and guesswork come into play even more.

Concept:  9.1.
We're just talking about pool here, right?  Wrong!  Sierra Sports Maximum Pool piles on features and variations galore.  Add to that multiplayer, and you've got yourself a well-rounded game with a wide age-range appeal.  A good portion of the game is testament to the possibilities of innovation for reg'lar ol' pool; now the developers need to take that angle and widen it.  Maybe tone down some of the sillier features and sounds, or split the game into two:  one for adults and one for kids.  But all in all, this product chalks up a winner in an oft-overlooked category of sports gaming.

Overall:  8.6.
Sierra Sports Maximum Pool is a surprisingly good game.  I've seen so many marginal-sport games that, because of their low profile, end up demonstrating that their development teams or publishers had low production values.  The developers of this title could have settled with making a game whose only major selling point was that it allowed for online play, but they chose to add features and make every feature count.  Of course, the glaring omissions (no shot-mapping system, and no 360º camera angles or animated opponents) bring its overall score down, but at around $30, this game is an excellent buy, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a quick-and-easy sideline addiction.