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Review: Hustle Kings | PSNStores

Review: Hustle Kings

Posted by on January 26th, 2010 | 2 Comments | Tags: , ,

Developer: VooFoo Studios
Release Date: December 22, 2009
Availability:
Price: $9.99 | £6.29 | €7.99
Demo: No
Players: 1-16 (Local) 1-32 (Online)
Rating: Everyone

What I liked:

  • Support for almost all PSN feature (voice and video chat coming soon)
  • Beautifully rendered and realistic graphics.
  • Online lobbies and betting your hustle credits.
  • Lots of modes to keep things fresh (Trick shots, Clear-up, Beat-The-Clock, etc.)

What I disliked:

  • Having DLC chalk that only lasts for a certain amount of turns before you need to buy more.
  • Difficulty towards the end of the game maybe too tough for some.
  • The way it is set for the challenger to break in an online match.

Upon starting the game you will be greeting with text stating the follow, “A game with shiny balls, developed by VooFoo Studios.” I will have to agree with the devs here, the balls in the game can in fact be very shiny. They are not the only thing that shines in this game though.

Hustle Kings is a title that really takes advantage of all the features you would want in a PSN title. The game has pretty much bullet-point item you can think of, except video and voice chat which are being patched in soon. There is replay saves, custom soundtracks, online multiplayer, trophies, in-game screenshots, etc. The only thing other than the voice stuff that I can think of that it is missing are some Home unlocks.

The game has your standard progression. There is a tutorial when you first start it up, this will teach you the ropes. After that you should be able to easily hop into the career mode and rack up some Hustle King Credits. While progressing through your career you will unlock events that you can play in the Offline mode. Think of that as a practice mode for tuning your skills which you will want to do. Once you have a fair amount of Credits you will want to take this game online.

What I do usually is hop into a room of people, up to 32, that looks fairly full. From there you can either challenge a player, using the credits you have earned, or sit around and wait for someone to challenge you. I would suggest challenging others though as if they accept your challenge you will get to break. If you are good enough you will be able to run the table before they even get a chance to chalk up their cue. Although if you are on the receiving end of this you might not like it too much. I found that some players would refuse to play me if I challenged them for this reason. I usually don’t like to suggest ideas, as I am sure the devs though of stuff like this, but I would really like it if the person who breaks was chosen at random. It would be more fair, and I am sure more games would be played. But there is always that person that would quit if they don’t break. In that case you can’t really do much about it.

Hustle Kings is a game that you will show off to your friends. The excellent rendering of the pool table and environments really shows off what the PS3 can do. The game is no slouch in depth either. It has almost all variants of pool, minus a few like snooker which I hear is coming via DLC. The extra little games like the trick shots will keep you playing the single player, while the online community, which is rather active, will keep you busy in multiplayer. Some may find the game to be a little hard after clearing the first two leagues in career, but for a player that is really into pool there pretty much isn’t a better game out there.

Click Here to purchase Hustle Kings from Amazon.com