13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
PGA paradise
Date of Review: Dec 29, 2000
My god I feel old, first of all I bought a golf game for my computer, and second I actually love it. I am not one of those people who watch golf on Sunday or anything like that. It must be the management side of me coming out, when working for a large computer company, you must golf or forget that promotion. :)
The graphics on this game are awesome, and the action is smooth. You can pump the video resolution to 1600X1200 with 3D acceleration on and the game looks almost lifelike. Any better and you may think you were sitting watching a golf game on tv.
You can choose to be one of the many golfers currently on the PGA tour, or you can make your own character. The only thing they left out was the ability to change outfits and faces on your self-made golfer, you have to choose from the bodies of one of the golfers that come preset in the game. You also have the option of playing on one of the many different courses that come with the game, such as pebble bay, the badlands, las vegas, poppy hills, spanish bay, 16 in all each with 18 holes, and if those are not enough, you can get expansion packs with many more courses. I don't know the pebble beach golf course from the sands of jupiter, but I believe that the courses are pretty much laid out to spec.
You also have the option of practicing, playing against up to 4 players on the net, tournament, skins game, shootout, match play, four ball, stroke play, or the driving range.
The game is fairly easy to learn to play, and in 10 minutes you will be golfing with the best of them. First you select a club, then you aim where you would like the ball to go, taking in to consideration wind, hills, trees, etc. Next you choose if you would like to attempt to put some topspin on the ball, making it stick closer to where it lands. Then comes the actual swing. Press the button or click the mouse, a power bar slowly rises, when you figure you are at the power you want, hit the button again, the power bar moves in the opposite direction, and you press the button when you figure you are smack dab in the bottom of the swing, to soon or to late and your ball may veer to one direction, or it may not go as far as you would wish. Watch out for those sandtraps!!!
The only other thing you have to worry about is putting. When putting, you have to take into consideration the slope of the green, and aim to adjust for it. On some hills there is such a curve that your ball almost goes sideways after you hit it. You can either analyse a grid or the green, or my favorite, use a putting line, these line show how much your ball will curve when you hit them in different directions.
Now I haven't had a golf game since Leaderboard golf on my old Commodore 64, but I highly recommend this game to all, not just golf lovers. I am not one, yet I just love this game.
