Everybody’s Golf 2 also known as Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 in America, the family friendly golf game so called as ‘everybody’ can play it, even a complete novice golfer like myself. From the get go it looks much like its predecessor, cutesy big-headed characters playing tournaments across a variety of golfing greens to win more characters, new courses and items to soup up your golfer’s appearance.
The single player options include Challenge, Stroke Play, Minigame and Training modes. Stroke Play lets you play through any course of your choosing, to have a quick round of golf. Minigame is a simple but addictive task of hitting a hole-in-one, made much easier with three large holes to choose from, each hole worth a little more points than the other. While navigating through the menus at times the game can appear frozen as the transition between screens isn’t smooth and there is no sign to show that loading is taking place.
Training mode calls itself a training mode but it’s not a very helpful coach, only letting you change the wind direction and to retry shots. The game doesn’t introduce you to the HUD (that’s Head’s-Up Display for the uninitiated, the information relaying icons you see on screen) or anything; just a chance to get yourself acquainted with the controls, which is not at all what I expect from a HUD-intensive game! For a golf game made to fit everybody I got a little confused with the HUD. Even after playing many a tournament there were still some icons that I’ll be darned if I ever figure out what they were supposed to display. So hopefully these will mean something to more advanced players looking for a bit more control in their golf game.
In Challenge mode, progress is made through collecting cards. Level up your characters using the three types of cards. The Head Card increases control, the Body Card increases power and the Accessory Card increases spin. You also gain loyalty points as you win tournaments. Each of the 11 characters can be fully customized with items and accessories. The outfit customization does not tickle my fancy to be honest but if you enjoy collecting dresses to add to your male character you’ll fit right in here.
Seeing as you often want to actually win a match it pays to use the camera to move about the course and eye out a desired placement for your ball. You actually get a lot of control moving the camera about the courses, maybe even too much control as you can easily get lost in the mountains somewhere. Luckily there’s a camera reset button (cross) to rest your worries. The left and right directional buttons strafe the camera left and right while the up and down buttons raise and lower the camera. Triangle moves the camera forward while circle moves it backward. The analogue stick changes the camera perspective as you move it but only temporarily. See what I mean about too much control! The camera can also get really frustrating when in ball flight mode as sometimes the rear camera will pop up in front of your ball and not let you see where your ball is about to land.
The graphics are pretty good for a portable game however look incredibly dated in comparison to the PS3 game Everybody’s Golf: World Tour. The background environment surrounding the course, often made up of hills and sky is only 2D and sticks out like a sore thumb. The characters look nice in their different costumes and fit well with each environment. There is a video feature that automatically captures some of your best shots and saves the replays. Its all in-game so it shouldn’t take up too much space on your memory stick but you can delete them later if you so wish.
Everybody’s Golf 2 features multi-player Infrastructure mode which did not come in the previous version and allows up to 16 players but as with a lot of PSP games there was no one online for me to play against! The Ad hoc mode is still present allowing up to 8 players to compete head-to-head or in tournaments, no game sharing unfortunately.
This is one of those titles that can be a lot of fun but one can get easily bored of a game based on a sport they have no interest in! If you’ve been lacking some serious golf action on your PSP now’s your chance, Everybody’s Golf 2 is your caddy. Pros: Pretty good graphics for a portable game, Infrastructure mode Cons: Confusing HUD, “Nice Shot!” right into a bunker Bottom line: If you’re interested in a fun little golf game for the PSP, give this one a shot!
Tags: Sony