Recently I reviewed the Xbox Live Arcade version of UNO, highly praising it for the ability to customise it to play to your liking; well, if you go read that review and replace all instances of "UNO" with "Bankshot Billiards 2", you'd have a good idea of what to expect out of this game! You can get a lot of snooker games online for free and the price of this one is high compared to the rest of the Arcade (the most expensive at the time of writing); what could be so good about it to warrant the expenditure? The short answer - everything!

You see, there're a lot of different versions of snooker around and Bankshot does its best to try and include as many as it can, and then some. You've got traditional modes like 8-Ball and 9-Ball, including a Euro 8-Ball variant, 3-Ball, 14.1 Continues (where players must call every shot and sink 30 balls before the other) and my personal favourite, Cutthroat. In Cutthroat Snooker you gather up three people, with a set of three different coloured balls on the table. Each player will sink a few and then decide what colour they'll be represented by and try to sink the other colours except that one, which they must try to defend. If a player is eliminated he can return if another player scratches the cue ball. It's a great mode, especially with two of your closest friends just having a laugh and chit-chat while playing.

What really makes the single player of this game worth it though are the three non-traditional modes: Trick Shot, Time Trial, and Golf. Each loaded with their own achievements, these modes give you pre-set ball placements and challenge you to sink all legal balls in one shot (Trick Shot), sink all legal balls as fast as you can (Time Trial) or sink all legal balls in a certain amount of shots (Golf, obviously). They're not easy to accomplish and make a great time killer when waiting for the latest download to finish or just in between other games to relax.

Online mode is what makes this game loads of fun, though. For years I was addicted to Yahoo! Pool and I know I'm not the only one. Bankshot plays very much like the Yahoo version of the game, but includes more game types and more online options, such as voice chat of course. Private rooms, open, just for fun games and ranked games all await you online, with every gametype available to play, and earning those harder achievements online is always very satisfying and rewarding.

As I hinted in the start of the review, BB2 also allows you to customise the experience to your liking, even outside of the table rules. Players can select from a variety of table styles and colours, ball types, cue sticks, even interface colours and floor tiling to create your ultimate snooker set up and experience. The top-down view can also switch to a fully rotational and 3D view at any time with a simple touch of the directional pad, which works seamlessly and brilliantly.

Musically, Bankshot is similar in style to UNO, but not quite on par with it. It doesn't distract from the experience but can get a bit tiring after extended play. That's no problem with the Xbox 360 though, as everybody knows; just stick on your own preferred music! Everything else in the sound area is quite nice though; it's hard to screw up the sound effects for snooker, but it's still nice to see that each and every ball has its own sound source and reacts accordingly, particularly on breaks.

The price for Bankshot Billiards 2 might be high compared to the other Live Arcade games, but it's well worth it and arguably better than many snooker games that are released as full price or budget games. All the modes, added challenges, full online support - it's a Snooker fans dream and only adds an exclamation point to Xbox Live Arcade's brilliance. If you want an arcade game with replay value that doesn't get monotonous then Bankshot Billiards 2 is most definitely the way to go, and worth every penny!

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).