(This game is known as Hot Shots Golf: Out Of Bounds in the US.) I spent much of the Saturday playing cartoon golf with my wife. It was easy-going and really quite fun, but in the end, I felt bad about it.
The gameplay itself is fine. Golf as a videogame is a very relaxed pursuit, so as long as you know what you’re getting into, I doubt you’ll be disappointed. The controls initially seem much more complicated than they actually are. Playing a full round takes a long time, though, but I guess that’s just part of the sport.
What I didn’t like was that after playing a full round (several hours) with my wife, I didn’t unlock anything. This bothers me because initially there is just one guy and one girl character to choose from and only one golf course to play on. Having effectively no choice is a bad thing.
You need to play the single-player challenge mode for a long time to unlock more stuff, including five more courses. I have zero interest in playing solo golf, so I’m not going to see the other courses and probably will not play the game anymore as a result. I just can’t understand why the developers would lock away all of their content in this kind of game. I appreciate some carrot in a game to keep me playing, but why not just lock away the zany extra characters, the optional outfits and other extra stuff?
And why do I have to play the singleplayer to unlock them? I know this is a common problem, but some games have found ways around this, including Call Of Duty 4 and Rainbow Six Vegas 2, awarding you for any time you spend with the game, online or not.
Giving me too little to keep playing is not a very common problem and really surprising here. Everybody’s Golf is otherwise doing things just right and I do feel it’s a fine relaxation game. Even though the elevator music begins to grate very quickly…
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