	PDC World Championship Darts
	Developer: Mere Mortals Publisher: Oxygen Release Date: Out Now Players: 1-4	Words By:
With timing as remarkable as EA's, PDC World Championship Darts arrived just before the actual PDC World Darts Championship started on Sky Sports, instantly raising my interest in the game. Yes, it’s amazing how much more appealing this sort of sports sim is when the real thing is on the TV. Helped in no small part by commentary from Sid Waddell (well, “commentary” might be the wrong term; inane and sometimes surreal ramblings might be more accurate), the Sky-Sports style presentation makes for a spectacle not unlike the real thing – the camera even zooms in on the treble twenty when a 180 is in the offing. The player likenesses (including 13-times World Champion Phil Taylor, Raymond Van Barneveld, John Part, Wayne Mardle, Mark Dudbridge, Colin Lloyd, Dennis Priestley, Alan Warriner-Little and Peter Manley) aren’t all that great, and they aren’t motion-captured or display facial expressions anything sophisticated like that, but in-game Peter Manley does looks like a sweaty, evil little hobgoblin with bad hair and a bad shirt so they must bear a reasonable resemblance. One and Two player modes cover all the normal types of game (301, 501 or 701) while 13 different party games allow for up to four players (Around the Clock, Cricket, Killer Black & White etc). With the normal ‘Amateur’ control method the player is guided by crosshair aiming sight and an on-screen power meter, and uses a golf game-style backward pull of the stick to power up the shot, and a push forward to release the dart towards the board which apes a real throwing action quite well – a straight pull back is also required or shots will ‘pull’ or ‘push’ left or right of the intended line. Aiming is static for low-pressure shots but your aim will start to waver when high out shots are available, or if you have 2 in the treble 20 and are going for a maximum 180. This means you have to have perfect timing and accuracy, and coupled to the fact that you can’t just throw at the same spot because your darts will actually deflect off each other, this adds a good element of skill to an elegant and tactile control system. It’s a shame the aiming movement isn’t a bit less sensitive though. The ‘Professional’ mode removes on-screen power meter and your skill and judgement are required to decide how far to pull back the dart purely by watching the player’s arm movement before releasing it towards the board. This is insanely difficult and I quickly discarded it - for me at least, playing real darts is much easier than this method, so why make it so difficult to judge? As you can see from the screen shots the graphics are certainly passable for the most part, even if the players animated poorly and the cardboard cut-out crowd sway backwards and forwards like extras from a cheap zombie movie. I tried to figure out why but couldn’t, but the look of the board changes to an annoyingly cartoony one for the party games and accuracy changes to “vague” to say the least. Unfathomably the control method for the party games is completely different and has 3 options (not including the normal one that I like), I suppose they’re meant to be easier to “pick up and play” but aren’t. In control method A, the crosshair rotates around the board and is stopped with the click of the X button, the cursor then moves from the centre to the outside of the board and back again - a second click of X throws the huge 2-D cartoon dart. Control method B is similar, but the two motions are firstly horizontal, then vertical following a press of X. Once again the second press throws the dart to the point where the crosshair was stopped. The third control method offers a “little more of a challenge”. In fact, control method C has to be the most insane control mode I’ve seen since Driving Emotion Type ‘S’, and has the crosshair moving steadily around the board with constant momentum which the player can alter by moving joystick in the opposite direction. The phrase ‘as easy as pushing string’ comes to mind. A press of X releases the dart, soon after a press of ‘Start’ will bring up the pause menu so you can quit and start again. There’s a ‘career’ mode in which you can “create your own player” – well actually you can’t, there’s only ONE player model, and he looks like a supply teacher – I find this amazingly half-assed in these days of player editors like Tiger Woods’ and Saints Row’s. You can however pick your little guy’s entrance music, shirt and control method before embarking on a multi-year career in the world of top-level professional darts… Each season requires you to take part in the available tournaments with the aim being to rise to the very top and become world number one – good luck with that, I love watching top pros playing darts on TV but sitting there and playing a video game version of it for hours? – no thanks. Much as I’d love to give PDC WCD a score of ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHyyyyyyyyyyyyyTYeeeeeeeeeee!/10 for daring to try something a bit different I can’t, and unfortunately even allowing for the seasonal rise in darts popularity (there’s not one but TWO world championships held every winter) and unless you’ve been hungrily waiting for darts to hit the PS2 then this is likely to be a fun game, but only for a short time. PDCWCD is probably the best effort at a darts game yet, but disappointingly the party games aren’t well realised and most video gamers play games to do things they can’t do in real life. I honestly can’t see why anyone would buy this rather than either watch the top players on TV, video or DVD, or alternatively play the real thing either at home – heck, I even hear they play the game in some pubs…

Best Bits
- Neat control system
- All the top players

Worst Bits
- Daft party mode controls allow for little accuracy
- Games take too long
- Do you really want to play darts on a console?


by: Diddly