Everybody's Golf: World Tour

Everybody's Golf: World Tour

Videogames’ obsession with realism can seem frankly ridiculous when a game like Everybody's Golf: World Tour saunters along.

Tiger Woods and the other ‘grown up’ golf games compete with one another to see which can most accurately model every blade of grass at St Andrews, meticulously recreating golf’s superstars in polygonal form and giving them all licensed shoes, pants and hairstyles. By contrast here is a game content with making the grass a big green texture on the floor, the sky a glorious Sonic-blue ceiling and the golfers gigantic-headed anime caricatures. But for all the game’s cutesy aesthetic, it’s a title that takes the golfing fun very seriously.

For aficionados we’re back to the three tap golfing system of old. That is: press X to start your swing, press it again when you reach the desired power, then press it once more as your club-head meets the ball to ensure accuracy and solid impact. This is the system used since time immemorial and, while we’ve grown accustomed to EA’s analogue swing system, it’s good to be back with such dependable and accurate mechanics. It’s possible to play this way using either a traditional gauge measure or by simply responding to the golfers’ animations.

Putting takes a slightly different form, overlaying lines indicating the contours of the land to help you estimate where to aim and how hard to strike. While these elements are traditional, they are beautifully executed and in next to no time at all you’ll be driving, chipping and putting birdies to crowd cheers and announcer cries of ‘NICE SHOT!’

The main single-player mode is ‘Challenge’ where you unlock up to six new courses, golfers, balls, outfits and caddies. Courses, like the golfers themselves, are injected with humour and personality, with giraffes occasionally wandering onto the course or rally cars screeching across the fairway. Despite the relatively small number of courses, the huge variety of weather conditions and wind types means that there’s always a new approach to be taken. Indeed, 108 different holes is just enough for the game to foster familiarity with the courses without overwhelming the player with sheer weight of content.

As the game progresses rival golfers get better and thus the margin for error reduces, intensifying the need for concentration. This main mode is bolstered by an online mode that acts as a hub for setting up games against other competitors around the globe. Up to 50 people can compete in a tournament and, in these bigger matches, there are often real in-game prizes to be won adding to the sense of urgency and occasion.

This might look like a slim and lightweight experience but it’s deceptively deep and engaging. The minutes will soon give way to hours of uninterrupted play, securing its position as one of the best sports games currently available for the system.

4 out of 5