About a month ago I found Hot Shots Golf on sale for 5 dollars at gamestop. Now I always liked the PS2 games developed by Clap Hands so I decided to pick the original one programmed by Camalot (makers of Mario Golf and Mario Tennis) up. While the original one lacks a lot of charm and wackiness that the later ones provided; but it is still a solid and fun golf game if you’re looking for a cheap thrill.

Objective of the game.
There are really two objectives of the game. The first is to compete in tournament to win trophies and exp points used to unlock other courses. The 2nd is to beat and unlock stronger golfers to help you compete in the tournament. For those who don’t know how to play golf, each course comes in 18 holes. Each hole has a par number, or the recommended number of strokes ranging from 3-5. Your goal is get it into the hole at the end of the course with strokes that are equal or under par in order to get a good score.

Graphics.
The graphics in the game are pure PS1. The characters are pretty stiffly animated and look like your basic generic anime type humans as well. As for the courses and the backgrounds are pretty bland. Worse is that there are no grids or continuer lines that can help you tell the steepness of a slope. Nor does the hole really appear on the green in till after you get on it, while a flag does appear to give you an idea of the hole, it doesn’t actually tell you where the hole is.

Sound.
No music or anything on this one. You hear birds chirping and animal’s squeaking but that’s it for background noise. There is no caddy to trash talk you either so it’s pretty quiet on the course. You do have a robotic voice that tells you good shot, has well as some audience members either cheering or awing at your shots.

Gameplay.
Ok so I have told you the basics of Golf now to tell you how Hot Shots golf works. You pick a character, you only have two to start off with but there are plenty to unlock. You then choose a course and start playing. On the course you have an arrow that points out wind, wind can affect your ball either for the better or for worse depending on which direction it’s blowing and how hard it is blowing.

After you set up and find where you want to aim your ball you press the X button to start the power bar, pressing X stops the power bar and causes the cursor to return, press X again near the white starting bar for perfect impact. If it’s off the white line the ball will curve a bit depending on what club and character you’re using. If it’s to far from the white line you will shank it and the ball will just roll wildly a few feet.

There’s more to it then that there is also top spin and back spinning of the ball. When your getting close to the green and you want your ball to go on the green without rolling off it you can give it a backspin. By pressing down on the control pad while taking your shot you will cause it to back spin and it won’t roll as much when it lands. But the wind will affect it more then a normal shot. Top Spin works the opposite way and it is for when you want to go greater distances with wind against you. Pressing up while taking the shot will cause a top spin, its distance in the air shrinks dramatically but when it lands on the ground it will roll a long way. This will make it so wind will affect it less.

Of course this is the way all Hot Shots Golf games play so what’s different about the original. Well several small things that make a big difference in the end. First to get new courses you need EXP in this one. You get this my winning tournaments of course, the higher you place in a tournament the more EXP you get. But you can also get EXP by getting birdies and eagles, and by doing tricks like pin shot and chip in as well.

Another thing that might throw people off who have been playing HSG3http://www.epinions.com/content_75392650884 and Fore is the power bar is a lot more basic. There are no little markers telling you how many feet your ball will go if you hit it here, there is only a marker for 50%. The rest you have to guest mate in order to get right. Putting on the green is the same way, there is only a 50% mark so you have to guess the correct distance to putt based on that.

As for the challenge of unlocking new characters it’s a bit of a mix bag, some characters are easier then others to unlock. And new characters you unlock aren’t necessarily better then the old ones. My main problem I notice is that characters seem to come in two extremes. You have the ones that have perfect control and spin over there ball, causing a large impact zone in which it’s impossible to shank. But they hit like 3 year olds and takes about 10 strokes to get to the green. Or there power sluggers that can hit the ball pretty far, but if you’re just a little bit past perfect impact on the power bar your going to be digging your ball out of some pretty deep rough. This can make it frustrating sometimes since very few characters come in between.

As for different modes there is the usual stroke mode found in all golf games where you go out on courses and see what’s the best score you can do without having to worry about placing like you do in a tournament. There is also a mini golf game as well to help you on your putting. Add in a few tutorial videos to help you learn the game and you don’t have a bad assortment of extras here.

Final Recommendation.
If you ask me which I would take the original Hot Shots Golf, or Hot Shots Golf Fore I would choose Fore of course. But if your looking for a good golf game that will make use of your PS2 backward compatibility, and is dirt cheap then look no further.


Recommended: Yes

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