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PSP Review - 'Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee'

by Inexhist on May 27, 2005 @ 2:14 a.m. PDT

Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee offers fans of the franchise all the golf action they have come to love, including breathtaking graphics, spectacular lighting effects, dramatic camera angles and true-to-life golf physics. In addition to new courses and the availability of 10 new characters and five new caddies, Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee provides a robust character customization feature that includes over 250 customizable body parts, accessories, clubs, and balls.

Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee

Genre: Sports
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Clap Hanz
Release Date: May 3, 2005

Buy 'HOT SHOTS GOLF: Open Tee': PSP

Whenever someone asks me to name an athlete or four, the chances are high that they will hear me rattle off any random baseball, football and basketball players before even the most prodigious golfers. Golf just does not seem to register with me as a real sport, instead seeming more like a pastime for old, affluent men. Like most stereotypes, this is, of course, a flawed train of thought, although accurate more often than not.

Since video game players can be stereotyped as slightly geeky men in their late teens to mid-twenties, there would seem to be no reason for golf video games to exist … but they do. Hot Shots: Open Tee is the golfing game in question here, and it is unmistakable evidence that golf is not just for the geriatric, rich or any other adjective that doesn't describe me or my ilk.

Hot Shots: Open Tee follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, providing players with a fun, charming and cute face on a fairly entertaining sport. After playing this, I have come to the conclusion that golf is one of few sports that translates fluidly into an interactive digital format. I image that part of the reason for this is that you only have to take control of a single player, allowing for simplification in the controls. Of course, just because the controls might be a bit simpler due to the number of positions a players does not mean that the game is lacking in complexity or depth at all. Everything operates on the basic premise of hit the ball with a stick and try to get it in the hole with as few swings as possible. If you have ever played miniature golf or real golf, this concept will not be foreign to you. The task, however, is nowhere near as trivial as this explanation.

In order to achieve the best possible scores on any given course, a player will have to master a number of unique strokes. These strokes range from a super duper backspin, which will even roll the ball backwards towards the hole if you overshoot, to less supernatural strokes that cause the ball to roll a bit of extra distance after landing.

The difficulty associated with any given shot is directly related to the skill of the character in use. Each character has stats which represent their golf abilities, such as power and ability to place spin on the ball. Much like an RPG, the stats will grow with the completion of matches and tournaments. Other special abilities will be unlocked for the characters as you gain their loyalty, which is a relatively simple process that occurs whenever you use them and either win or lose a tournament or match. The special abilities will offer new special shots as well as some other various goodies, but these special shots are generally poorly documented (read: not at all). The lack of explanation on these left me wondering how to use them and what they even did. Perhaps there is something I am missing, but I doubt it, unless they are standard golfing terms, which I also find dubious because I have never heard of a golfer using heat-seeking balls…

Winning matches will reward the player with a decorative item and some stats or a new character. Some matches will also provide gold stars as rewards, which accumulate and move the golfer into new leagues. With progress into new leagues, a player will find himself with new courses, items and characters at their disposal, helping to expand the gaming goodness. Using the various items won, a player can essentially design the character to suit their wants. If you want to have long flowing brown hair, a pair of sunglasses and skater clothing, you can, in addition to many other options. Even cooler is that you can use your customized appearance when playing against various friends through an ad-hoc connection which supports up to eight players.

The courses change the style of play drastically, forcing a player to learn new and more difficult strokes and to perfect their game in order to compete. The first course is in the Alps, featuring a large amount of mountains, very few spots with water, and a small number of unobtrusive sand pits. With fairly simple and open courses, the Alps is a really easy place to start things off. From there, you will progress through the slightly more difficult Japanese course to the watery courses of Holland. Holland is where things got noticeably more difficult, as the water was almost more abundant than the green, and following that comes the desert course, complete with pyramids and more sand pits than air. There is also the Links master course, which is a very difficult, fairly lush course that doesn't exactly have a lot going on in the way of decoration. The final course seems to be the coolest, as it looks almost like a dinosaur-themed mini-golf course on steroids; giant dinosaurs statues loom about, and the green itself is sparse and rough looking, like an overgrown swamp. The best part about each and every course is the fact that they add their own challenges to the games while forcing you to apply new techniques.

The types of games you can play change the rules somewhat and each has a fairly different feel to it. Match play has the golfers take turns while observing when the other player is up. Wins are calculated on a hole by hole basis and the person who has the most wins at the end of the 18 holes wins. Tournament lets the players play through each hole without interruption tallying up the score at the end. In this mode you really have to play a near perfect game in order to make any progress since every stroke counts towards your score.

There are two game types which are most important to this game; the career mode which I just outlined for you and the versus mode. In versus mode you can run a tournament with up to eight participants battling it out on the green. This mode was by far the most entertaining and it even supports UMD swapping (so multiple players can play using one disc). Just recently at the opening night for the last movie in the biggest trilogy of recent history I found this game to be a great bundle of joy.

Visually Hot Shots: Open Tee is beautiful in many ways. The courses look realistic in a cartoon stylized sort of way, and the varied obstacles and hazards all look appropriate and fit into the overall appearance flawlessly. Even the giant dinosaur statues look right at home, as if they might come alive and run off chasing each other, leaving behind a lingering cloud of smoke (it's a roadrunner metaphor, in case I missed my mark). The characters display a remarkable amount of personality, so much in fact that they push into the realms of annoying at times. Each character is like a caricature drawing of some extreme personality trait, like the spiky-haired rebel who throws his club and storms around frequently throwing tantrums, the exceptionally polite witch who is generally demure or apologetic and occasionally flies around on a broom…

Some of the more comment-worthy aspects of the game are the graphical effects. For instance, the camera follows as the ball streaks past its position in mid-flight for some very cinematic moments. Other prime examples are things like the effects around the ball when you pull off a special shot. When these happen, different things will occur, such as the ball bursting into flames, a blue particle effect swirling around your characters, and more. No one effect is amazing or pushing the limits of what we may have seen on the less portable consoles, but they are all quite amazing and very suitable for the game, especially given that this is all happening within the palm of your hand.

Musically, the game is a bit droll and does not live up to the potential of the device (although, as we know from Lumines, the hardware's audio potential is quite high). I generally felt as if the music were maybe only mildly better than we would find on a GBA. The other sound effects were generally of a tolerable quality, and outside of the relatively annoying wind noise that seemed to constantly be present, they were fairly unobtrusive.

To be honest, Hot Shots: Open Tee should be selling itself to most of the people who would buy it. Fans of the series who own a PSP should most likely already be on the green. Beyond the already present fans of the series, anyone looking for a fun game that can be picked up, played, and put down at whim, will find what they need here. The ad hoc play is simple and fun and even supports UMD swaps so your friends don't need the game if you have it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I really do enjoy playing golf, at least in this format.

Score: 7.1/10

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