ProStroke Golf World Tour 2007 Review

Stepping up to the tee earlier in 2006 for the crop of current-gen platforms, Oxygen Interactive and Gusto Games' ProStroke Golf offered golfing gamers an alternative to EA's well-established Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchise. There were a number of issues with the game however, such as the small number of real-world courses and the somewhat patchy visuals, though the game's emphasis on the golf stroke certainly made up for a lot of the inadequacies. With the Ryder Cup now safe under lock and key on European shores (once more), and the golf-related Christmas box sets now on sales, Oxygen has expanded the ProStroke name onto the PSP, but is it a clean debut straight down the fairway?

Like so many multi-platform titles that have arrived onto the PSP, ProStroke Golf is a near-copy of its home console bigger brother, so it'll certainly feel very familiar to Xbox and PlayStation2 veterans of the series. As with the home console version, ProStroke features a small number of gameplay options from Quick Play through to Tournaments, Careers, and Course Builder. The less than polished visuals and general presentation found on the home console versions remains a slight issue for the title, though the size of the PSP screen in comparison does at least mean that it doesn't seem quite as rough around the edges. In addition, Messrs. Green, Torrance, and Baker-Finch, are all in attendance to offer their thoughts on proceedings, though it would be quite nice if they weren't quite as pessimistic about your chances of making some putts...

Being a handheld port, the focus is of course on whether the translation of the 'trademark' ProStroke device is more successful than the US Ryder Cup team. The PSP's lack of a second analogue nipple means that the element isn't a direct translation - but then again, neither is the build up to taking a shot. Mapping the swing to the PSP's shoulder buttons, and the weight distribution of the golfer's feet to the d-pad, means that the ProStroke itself is quite clumsy. Not only does this mean that it's unlikely that you'll use it after the first hole or two, but it also opens up the fact that you don't actually have to move the feet at all to have a successful swing at the ball makes it all the more superfluous. Positioning where the club will hit the ball (for different spins) remains useful, so to the angle of the swing, but even then the gameplay really does rely on little more than a generic triple-tap power meter that's more than a familiar sight to golf games.

One key annoyance in the transition to the portable platform is how gamers are forced to watch their golfing partner going through the motions (with the 'Skip' button more of a fast forward), something of a time-wasting feature when you're playing the handheld version - especially if you're intending to play on the tube or bus. Let's just say that an option to skip to your next shot would have made a welcome addition for the PSP.

ProStroke also extends beyond the single-player game, offering Ad Hoc Wi-Fi multiplayer for up to four gamers to participate in any of the courses. Hosts are able to change a number of attributes from the weather to the position of the Tee, enabling close-distance tap-ins. Additionally, players can send their own custom-made courses to fellow ProStroke PSP gamers. Like the ProStroke control system on the handheld, designing a course is a tad cumbersome; from the long save time at the start of building through to the actual hands-on and icon-heavy 'designing', it doesn't seem to be particularly well-suited to the handheld - especially when the focus of a portable platform is largely about gaming on the move. Worth one or two bullet-points on the title's feature list, it's rather questionable as to how often the options will be used by gamers, and shows why developers should provide greater Infrastructure functionality to their PSP titles.

ProStroke Golf continues to offer an alternative to EA's gargantuan golfing franchise, even on the PSP, though the decision to drop the first-person perspective when lining up a shot, and the PSP's single-nipple disability, does bring the gameplay gap between the two a tad closer. Coming over two months after its rival was released on the handheld platform may mean that ProStroke on PSP may just be a couple of strokes behind.