Although I don’t like golf at all, I’ve always enjoyed a good golf game. From PGA European Tour on the Amiga, which I don’t even remember buying, through Mario Gold, NES Golf, Golf Story, and so on. One of my favourites is Neo Turf Masters for the NeoGeo Pocket, which is the Other Region name for this – Big Tournament Golf. To be enjoyable, golf games need to be simple. Choose a club, aim, press a button to swing, set …
I didn’t think Apple Arcade was ever going to be for me, and to be honest I still don’t, but that hasn’t stopped me getting the month’s free trial and giving a few things a go. What the Golf is one game that stands out as “working on a touch screen”, to the point where I’ve managed to complete it. And, more importantly, enjoy completing it! The game starts off as a golf game. Pull back your finger to aim …
Golf Peaks is a little puzzle game where you have to get the golf ball in the hole. However, unlike actual golf, you use card with distances on for your “shots”, and various surfaces act upon your ball – stop it dead, kick it in the air, make it slide, etc. Each “world” has it’s own new gimmick across its 12 levels, and when you’ve completed at least 9 of them you move on to the next level. It’s quite …
That was quick! I am aware that most of the time you’d spend with a golf game like this would be in multiplayer, or the online tournaments, or (in this case) the extra courses that don’t play a part of the “story mode”, but I didn’t expect to have licked all three course contests in just a few days. In fact, I won the first and second contests on my first attempts, although the Mountain Course proved trickier and I …
For some reason, ny wife decided we should play this today. It’s sad to see how it has aged so much already, although some of it is probably due to how we’ve been playing Golf: Tee Off! a lot recently. Anyway, we played the Explorer course, and I won, getting a score of -8 at the end of it.
Played this again for quite a while today. I’ve now managed to come first (and under par) on both courses – hence the “completed”. The Scottish course, complete with Stone Henge, is by far the harder of the two. It seems to have much stronger winds, smaller patches of fairway, and larger (and more) trees. On the other hand, the Caribbean course has lots of water. Which I ended up in for the first time playing my wife. I thought …
Had much better luck with on the Explorer course today, managing to finish with 7 under par. I was actually 15 under par way through the first day, but that stupid carnival level with the card suits that flash over a hole messed up on me, as I kept rebounding off the hole, or got stuck in it only to be launched over the course entirely. Rubbish. Having done that, I moved on to Adventurer, which is two days of …
Played through this on single player this evening for a while, finishing off the Traveller course in 8 under par or so. I then had a go at the Explorer course, and finished at 36 over par – not good. Afterwards, I played a few rounds in two player mode with my wife, which was hardly fair as she’d not played it before. That didn’t stop her getting a hole in one on her first shot, though…
Hmm. I’m seeing some real problems with this already. Didn’t they bug-test it at all? The ball is forever getting stuck on, in or under things. The worst big today was while I was playing online against someone, and he was winning. Then, on one of the Wild West holes (the one on the train station platform, I think), his ball was launched up in the air and just stopped dead. In mid-air. And stayed there. It kept spinning, but …
There were two new games on XBLA today, this and Gyruss. For some reason, I felt compelled to buy this though. It’s good. There are issues with collision detection, ball physics, random acts of gravity, and camera angles, but it’s a reasonably good fun crazy golf game with some totally bizarre holes – like ones set in space. I played a few games online (and lost), and also played “Traveller” mode, coming 4th overall with a score of, erm, 32 …
Yes, yes. Another new game. I seem to be accumilating them at a rate of one a day at the moment. I wish they’d stop making new ones for a bit so I could catch up… Anyway. True Swing Golf is, as the name suggests, a golf game where you “swing” the stylus to swing your club. And it works reallt well – far better than the “power meter” type systems in other golf games, and more realistic than the …
With the Mushroom doubles out of the way, all that was left for me to do was the Mushroom Singles. Needless to say, I won. With a staggering -12 score. Credits roll, Game Over!
With a bit more practicing out of the way, and my players bumped up a few notches, I tried the Doubles Mushroom tournament. And it’s hard. You see, you sometimes have to hit “Play Panels” by landing on them, which in turn alter the layout of the hole. Of course, you can ignore them, but then you also make birdies near impossible. I wasn’t looking forward to bailing Neil out as well as defeating some difficult players on some hard …
Went and did some more training sessions to take my golfers up a few levels, mainly so that Neil stops being an idiot. Sadly, he still is, but my attempt at the Links Doubles was successful! I see that the Mushroom Tournament is now unlocked. Well, it was unlocked after the Singles, but I didn’t go and have a look.
