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Outlaw Golf Review |
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Outlaw Golf
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Not only am I not a golfer, I used to chuckle at people's attempts to get me into the game and tell me it can actually be fun. Boy, has my outlook changed. Outlaw Golf is a very fun, unique title in that it combines very over the top characters with an extremely tight golf game to make one certainly unique gaming experience.
Surprisingly enough, hidden behind this seemingly watered down for the masses golf game is an incredibly accurate physics engine coupled with a very wide variety of gameplay modes to keep most gamers interested for quite some time. The controls can be a little touchy and maybe a little too overly complex for some more casual gamers or those not really into the actual game of golf. However, for those who are control freaks and love to have every little thing in their control, then the control scheme is great.
Unique to Outlaw Golf, is a composure meter. Where if you are playing badly, it goes down, making it harder to get off a gecent shot, but if you make a series of good shots, it goees up and makes it more likely you'll smack out a good one next time as well. In making grat shots or finishing a hole under par, you'll gain chips which allow you to beat on your caddy when your composure is down. Beating on your caddy will raise your composure level back up depending on how well you smack your caddy around. The beating on the caddy part of the game could have been much better, if it had let you beat on your caddy DOA/VF style and decide the moves you'd use. Instead it has you push the A button at a certain point 5 times consecutively to trigger animations of your character beating on your caddy. Entertaining at first, but it's always the same, so it can get a little boring even when it is two strippers. :) The breadth of characters is fun and diverse, with a near equal number of male and female golfers, only four of which are available to play with from the start. The rest are unlocked thru various events and successes.
Swinging your club is also unique and sometimes frustrating in Outlaw Golf, and to be honest it almost made me quit the game entirely and take it back I was so utterly frustrated with how difficult it was to hit a decent **bleep** without slicing it. But after thirty minutes to an hour of practice I was hitting a large majority of my shots with ease. You'll know when you'vee made a good shot because it will either have a smoke or fire trail when it's struck and your composure will go into the green. Making decent shots is aided by a supposed trajectory of the shot if everythign goes to plan, as well as multiple camera angles to let you get the best bead on the best line to the hole. Especially appreciated is the abiltiy to see where a put on the green will go before you hit it, making targeting less guess work and a little more skill. You only get three previews of your put, but that should be enough to let the player get an idea of the trajectory.
Overall, the gameplay is difficult, but effective and most players will likely feel the very same frustration on this game as they would on the real greens.
the graphics in Outlaw Golf are a mixed bag. Some things are done very well, such as the environments. the grass is volumetric, which means much like the grass in Tony Hawk 2x, it appears to be standing up and can actually obscure objects, instead of it being a flat texture. The sandtraps have bump mapped rake trails and actually look like sandtraps, and the green has a light bump mapping to it as well. The water hazards are nice to look at, but don't really react like real water as in DOA3 or Hunter. On the downside, the characters, while good, are nothing great. The hair textures are one solid mass, and clothing is once again, seemingly painted on and moves as if a second skin on the character models. The animations are good, but when players interect with each other (usually caddys and golfers) they tend to have some noticable clipping at contact points. Menus are easy to navigate and pleasant to look at, although loading times are a tad longish when starting a game. the most surprising part of the game in my opinion is the winning/losing animations and the speeches that goes along with them, I found myself laughing at least a dozen times at what the character say or do that surprises me. For example, the strippers spank each other playfully, the latin lover refers to his um... well... ya know that kind of stuff. Things like that keep my interest in the game all the more high.
Gamers familiar with Comedy Centrals "The Daily Show" will notice immediately that the main narrator is none other than Steve Carell. Opinions vary on his comedy bits, but I personally enjoy his brand of humor and it fits in well with the tone of the game itself. The characters voices are for the most part exaggerated caricatures of stereotypes such as a latin lover, a pair or strippers, a white wanna-be rapper, and others. They are done in tone with the game, so I can't fault them with that. The music is typical, but pretty boring. At it's best it's background music, with mild changes in genre with each golfer.
To me, most sports titles have an inherent replayablity, since it's usually not an option to "finish" the game, as it's never the same twice. Outlaw Golf is no exception, and adding to it's inherent replayability are the various modes and stat building available thru them. Finishing certain single player modes will allow you to add to your stats and improve your gaame substantially, as well as open up new gameplay modes in the process. So if one can gain near mastery of the control scheme, Outlaw Golf will certainly be played for countless hours.
You've all heard me say it before and I'll reiterate it here, but I have never been interested in golf, nor golf games, but Outlaw Golf has made a believer out of me. I would have never picked it up except for the promised quirkyness and uniquesness of the game. I do understand golf ( and extreme frustration at missing a shot) quite a bit better now and the skill that is associated with being a good golfer. I still play Outlaw Golf quite a bit trying to improve and get better for when my golf friends come over. Can I golf in real life... um.. no... not if my life depended on it... but I can sure smoke some birdies in Outlaw Golf!
Review By: JakeT
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