Subpar Pool review: the most charming pool-golf you've ever play, but not quite a hole(down) in one
As Rare famously discovered back in the 90s, if you stick a pair of eyes on an inanimate object, it immediately becomes the most adorable thing you've ever seen in your life. Take Subpar Pool's cue ball. What could have been just a straightforward mash-up of pool meets golf is suddenly given a new lease of life, warmth, charm and character, just because it has little eyes and a dumb, goofy smile plastered on its face. Some of its 'Chonker'-sized pool balls even have coiffed miniature moustaches for crying out loud, and they all babble cute nonsense noises at you as you ping them around its procedurally generated boards; hrnnnnngh they're just so gosh darn endearing that I simply cannot help myself. They make Subpar Pool a very easy game to like, which is precisely why it's so heartbreaking I can't quite bring myself to love it in the same way I do Grapefrukt Games' previous puzzle game, Holedown.