King Of Clubs Review

The fantasy of crazy golf never quite meets the reality. In real life you might imagine perfectly timed strokes that place your ball into the oblivion of a clown's opening and closing mouth, for example, only to have it re-appear magically in a completely different direction on the other side. You wonder, 'What could possibly be going on inside that clown? Perhaps it's a complex system of tubes, operated by Oompa-Lumpas that decide the fate of your crazy golf ball.'

Perhaps not. Anyway, most crazy golf courses aren't full of cool obstacles that make your imagination run riot. As we know here at TVG from far too many camping holidays in France as kids, crazy golf courses are more likely to be made up of unimaginative holes carpeted with mucky green felt, surrounded by one layer of bricks, with the only obstacle being a slight incline near the hole and a right angle dogleg at the beginning.

Missed Opportunities

Presumably, with a computer game, developers have free reign to make this crazy golfing fantasy a reality, by adding in all sorts of bizarre obstacles and insane loop-the-loops that couldn't be easily built in the real world. This point has unfortunately been lost on King of Clubs' makers. After many hours of play the most imaginative obstacle we've come across is the atypical crazy golf windmill, which wasn't even particularly infuriating to get past with its small blades and slow revolutions.

The courses in King of Clubs would be sub-par even as an actual crazy golf course. They're full of blocks that move up and down or side to side along the course. Occasionally there are humps here and there; a jump that you'll have to negotiate; a banked corner to go around or, if you're really lucky, a go faster stripe that usually propels your ball uncontrollably out of bounds. Not once did we think while playing King of Clubs, 'Oh man, that hole was awesome! Why can't they have stuff like that on actual golf courses? Surely, in a crazy golf computer game, you really should be thinking that.

Unfortunately, however, this isn't the game's only major failing. The problems start with something as simple as the power meter. Traditionally in a golf game you'll have a power meter that's started with the tap of a button. Then the gamer will tap the same button again as the meter increases to determine the shot's power, and perhaps once more as the meter returns for the accuracy of the stroke.

King of Clubs' power meter looks similar to those in other golf games (a horizontal strip across the bottom of the HUD), but the way it operates eliminates any sense of rhythm and timing in your shots. You can pre-set the amount of power you want for your shot with the left and right buttons on the PSP's d-pad. Once this is done, all you have to do is press X and the ball will go along its merry way accordingly. This system takes away a key gameplay feature for a golf game, eliminating the rewarding feeling of performing a well timed stroke because, let's face it, if you can't do it with a pre-set meter, then you must be a complete moron.

Other than these two fatal flaws, the rest of the game stands on semi-sturdy grounds. It provides 95 holes that are set throughout 5 separate themes with a couple of courses for each theme. These have a distinctly historic feel to them (e.g. Prehistoric, Egyptian, and Medieval) and each of the game's five characters are a master on each particular course type.

As far as game modes are concerned, the single-player offerings start with a fairly rudimentary Career mode. You'll play through the courses to achieve various medals with high scores. This provides you with money that you can then spend on upgrades that actually manage to improve the gameplay a bit. These include bouncy rubber balls, putters that impart curved trajectories on your shots, and some less significant unlockables such as ball tints.

There's also the opportunity to play against course pros in single Tournaments; play for as long as possible in the game's Survival mode by continuously beating your opponent on each hole; while the Speed Golf option pits you against the clock with each shot. We can't criticise the opponent AI that you face in Tournament and Survival modes because we didn't see them do anything particularly stupid, although they weren't that challenging either. Finally, multiplayer offerings include hand around and ad-hoc play for up to 4 players, while there's also the bonus of game sharing.

Right Off The Club

Overall, then, the game is distinctly mediocre in terms of content and the fatal flaws in the game's design ruin any appeal that the content offers. If you can't get the holes or the power meter right, then you've pretty much sucked all of the life out of a crazy golf game right off the bat.

The graphics are perhaps the best thing about this game, but they are still pretty bad nonetheless. The textures look flat throughout and the colours are bland, which would fail to inspire any gamer with taste to play on through the rest of the game's quagmire. As for sound: I could've done a better job with a country music backing track and my Squire Stratocaster guitar - and I'm not particularly good.