Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

Sony and Clap Hanz have a long running history with the “Everybody’s Golf” series, better known to those of us in the United States as Hot Shots Golf.  Although the first title was handled by Camelot Software Planning and published by Sony, every title since has been handled by golf veterans Clap Hanz.  When the PlayStation 3 was announced, one of the very first titles shown to be in development was a Next-Generation addition to the Hot Shots Golf series.  On July 26th of last year Japan got their hands on Everybody’s Golf 5 – it sold like gangbusters selling over 150,000 copies in the first week of release. 

A quick flip of the box promised new locations, a revamped shot system for “unprecedented control”, online tournaments for up to 50 players, and the return of the crazy characters and caddies we’ve all come to expect from the series.  Clearly they were promising more than a bump in resolution, and this morning I’m able to finally get my hands on the title to see what the Japanese loved so much about Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds.

For the uninitiated, the Hot Shots Golf series is a great example of incredible attention to physics covered with a sugar candy coating.  Using a superdeformed look unique to the series, Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds looks like a blend of Japanese Anime coupled with realistic backgrounds.  All of the characters are semi-short versions of themselves with big heads, large hands, and really big eyes.  It is not unlike what we’ve seen in other Japanese RPGs that have made their way across the pond recently.  If you like Super Puzzle Fighter from Capcom, you’ll like the looks of this Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. 

There are a total of six courses to play, each ramping in difficulty as well as the number of hazards and blind shots.  There are a few moments where the courses seem overly shiny or show a few jagged edges, but for the most part, they look fantastic and realistic with a rock solid framerate. 

Graphically there is one other thing may irritate some players – customization of your character is almost nil.  Sure, you can unlock clothing and equipment, but other than colors it really doesn’t get any better than that.  You’ll get at least a little variety in your caddies with some of them wearing head scarves, oversized boots, and funny pleated skirts.  You won’t find a SpeedTree-powered customization system here folks, it’s an extra heaping of sugar on your squeaky oversized cowboy-hat-wearing toon whether you like it or not.

There are some great comic features that really keep with the feel of the game.  Other players will pout and stomp their feet when they do badly, jump around and pose when they do well, and clap their hands excitedly at every opportunity.  Not unlike a graphic novel, there are chat bubbles that draw your attention such as “clap” for hand clapping and “rustle” when your ball makes its way through the trees.  When you make a perfect chip shot you’ll likely see a cute little rainbow trail behind your ball and an ‘inside the cup’ perspective from the cup.  Another cup of sugar please.

You are gonna love the voices in this game or absolutely despise them. Everyone sounds like an exaggerated Anime stereotype.  What I mean by that is that the Scottish guy sounds extra Scottish, the girls are all extra squeaky (some to the point of not even sounding human anymore), and everyone is nice to the point where I felt like I was about to get a sugar buzz. 

Ugh…I’m gonna hear the repeating voices in this game in my sleep – “One, Two, STRETCH!”, “Hit it a mile!”, “You’ll wanna put it over there pal.”, “Good luck!”, “Can ya do it?”, “Get it in!”, “Read this green.”, “Ooh, spot of bother here.”, “This is difficult!”, and “I don’t know about this…” makes you want to hold up a “Quiet!” sign, and yes…you’ll hear every one of those statements on EVERY HOLE.  It’s like having a bunch of yes-men following you around, commenting on everything around you incessantly.   Bonnie the Caddy has to be the worst of them with her hyper-exaggerated Scottish accent.  Hey Clap Hanz, if you need Scottish actors I have a good idea where a whole continent of them are – you can borrow my globe if you get lost.

The ambient noises in this game had me looking outside to see if there was some sort of owl outside my arcadia door, Clap Hanz did a great job with them.  The ping of the club striking the ball, the wind, and the impact on the grass are all perfectly done.  It helps to ease the pain of the skipping voices at least a little bit.

In Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds there are two shot types – traditional and advanced.   Traditional is more of a button timing like we have seen in other golf titles – you’ll press a button to start your power meter, stop it when you reach the desired power level, and then press a third time to determine your accuracy.  Getting that perfect shot is as simple as watching the meter and having decent timing.  The Advanced Shot system is more like what we saw introduced in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 – you watch the swing and press the X button to set the power of the stroke, but that is where things are a bit different.  In the aforementioned Tiger Woods you simply made a smooth forward motion with your thumbstick to determine your overall impact accuracy, but with Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds you’ll instead get a small impact circle that contracts as your club approaches the ball.  If you go too quickly or slowly you’ll get a small rabbit or turtle icon to help coach you into the right speed.  Hitting the X button at the point when the impact circle is tightest will ensure a perfect hit.  Advanced Putting is handled in a similar fashion, but this time a yellow ball appears on the green to indicate the overall direction and speed your ball will move based on your power.  The further away the shot the more faded this indicator becomes, making longer shots possible but more difficult than if you just got a generic line to follow, as is the case with the Traditional Shot system.  In point of fact, the power indicator for putting in the Advanced System is actually far easier to gauge than the Traditional System for me, but lining up the shot requires a real good read of the lie on the green.  Being able to judge distance, slope, the speed of the green is crucial for making par.  Overall, I didn’t particularly favor one hit style over the other.  They are both very easy to pick up and use, and both have their advantages and disadvantages.  More importantly than the chosen control scheme is your overall stats.

Each character in the game (there are 15 in all, classified from Novice to Expert) have five very important stats that govern their overall skill.  Power, Control, Impact, Spin, and Spidespin vary between characters, but are modified even further by choosing between the 8 club types and 8 ball types.  Some will bump your impact and control significantly only to cost you a great deal of power.  Balance in all things grasshopper.  Once you get past the initial two characters you’ll also find characters that have other strengths and weaknesses like playing poorly in the rain or excelling at chip shots.  Matching the character to your personal strengths and weaknesses is key.

When you get more comfortable with your character and how they play you can begin to deviate a bit from the straight shots that most novices use to drive the fairway.  Eventually you’ll begin to apply top, back, or side spin to your ball (tapping up, down, left/right on the D-Pad before you hit) which will allow you to pull off more professional hit, slicing around trees and the like.  Once you get the hang of the timing and spin techniques you’ll find that obstacles in the course aren’t as much of a threat as they used to be.  In addition, as your loyalty rises you’ll be able to press O to reduce impact at the last moment to pad your shot a bit if needed.  It all translates to finer control of the ball and a lower handicap.

When you finish your round you’ll get to see stats from the course for each character that played, including their percentage of fairway hits, average distance to pin, average number of putts, as well as the stats to brag about – longest putt, longest chip-in, best drive, and perfect impact.

As I mentioned before, the thing that factors into your shots (other than general consistency) most are your character stats.  After each round of golf you’ll use the points earned from playing well to improve your Loyalty meter.  When your loyalty goes up you’ll be able to upgrade your stats and earn new skills.  The upgrades vary from increased power to giving you more chances to use “Shot Mode”.  (Shot Mode allows you to apply a little more power and accuracy to your swing for more difficult shots or power shots from the tee)  The system holds close to the more arcade approach so you shouldn’t feel like you are drowning in stats and upgrade options. 

To unlock new characters and gear in the game you’ll enter into tournaments via the Challenge Mode.  As you work through the challenge modes you can obtain new characters by beating them on the course.  You can also get new items by selecting from six cards that are face down between rounds of the Challenge Mode.   Sometimes they are useful items like a new driver or the rights to hire a new caddie, and other times they are odd things like snorkeling gear to wear in the online lobby or something as simple as new clothing. 

Rounding out with the mundane, I’ll push the numbers.  There is an 11.5 minute install time when you first put in the game with a 14 second initial load time for the first hole but only 2 seconds for every one after that.  It allows you to spend time with your squeaky character instead of giving the evil eye to the loading screen.

Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds features 1-4 local multiplayer, as well as up to 50 players for massive online tournaments.  On day 1 for the game I was only able to find a few players already hitting the links.  The online mode is split up into “Clubhouses” with each one having several floors that grant access to a wide variety of tournaments – an interesting look at what the online mode of Home might look like, I just hope the chat interface improves as there is no voice option that I could find.  Each tournament is split by ranking and skill level, so just pick according to your skill and you should be ok.

The online mode was stable and most folks were friendly and considerate – I guess golf attracts a different caliber of people than first person shooters and it is hard to be rude with what feels like a cell phone chat system without the benefits of more than one key. I was able to jump into a quick back 9 scramble with 8 other players on the Okinawa course.  I came in at one over par, but that wasn’t enough to win the day, netting me a third place seat.  I’d say that the online system is a good start, minus the chat, but it does seem to be split by region as I didn’t see a single Japanese player all day.

The only real hitch I can find beyond the chat interface is the lack of courses.  There are only 6 courses shipping with the game, which is significantly less than other golf titles on the market.  Granted, there is an opportunity for downloadable content on the PS3, but we all know that new courses will cost ya.  The nice part is that there is enough solid gameplay on the disc to make the package worth it, as long as you are into arcade-style golf instead of the more realistic links.

Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds takes great strides in the graphic department but doesn’t really reinvent the wheel.  It takes what worked for the previous titles and drops the massive online component and new shot system right into the mix.  If only I could talk with the other 49 people playing online with something beyond the cave drawing level chat system.  This is one of those games that you can’t judge simply by the looks – there is a deep golf system underneath.  While there isn’t a great deal of courses to play, there is certainly a great golf game underneath the confection veneer overload laced onto every square inch of the game. 

Gaming Trend Score

83

1. Graphics: 85
2. Audio: 70
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:83