Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds

Before Mario Golf there was Hot Shots Golf for the original PlayStation. Featuring characters with inflated heads and flaming power shots, it ended up defining what arcade golf would become. Over the years the series hasn’t changed much, and the sequels just keep on coming. It has remained popular due to its accessibility yet surprisingly deep gameplay hidden just beneath the surface, but at some point just about everything reaches saturation. Its first outing on the PlayStation 3 is here, but does it chip in for birdie or shank it wide right?

The Hot Shots series has never been one to skimp on the options, but at the end of the day it’s golf, and there’s only so much you can do with the sport. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Out of Bounds. Like a lot of sports franchise debuts on a new console, the options here are pretty limited. You have the choice of stroke play, training, or challenge play. Challenge play is where you’ll spend most of your time taking on the same course 10 times in a row until you finally face off against another golfer. Win and they become unlocked. Along the way you’ll also make new clubs, balls, and caddies available, though you can’t unlock accessories for your players. This is a bit ridiculous considering the option exists in the very first version of the game for the PSP.

There are just six different courses to play and you’ll get to know them very well because the game forces you to play each one incessantly before the next is unlocked. The good news is that they’re designed well enough that they always present a decent challenge, and there will undoubtedly be more coming down the pipe via downloadable content, but then you’ll have to pay more money for them.

The biggest addition is online play. You begin by creating an avatar, and then you can enter one of the fully rendered lobbies. From here you can run around like an idiot, text chat, and organize or join online games and tournaments, with the latter being available for up to a whopping 50 players. You play these tournaments by yourself under a time limit, and then your score is posted to compare against the other competitors. No matter which way you decide to play online, there is no voice chat available.

And this is where the list of options in Out of Bounds comes to a close. For a game with an arcade theme, and seemingly as much creative latitude as a developer could want, where are the whacky balloon pop options, or miniature golf, or ring competitions that other arcade golf games have included for years?

Hot Shots’ three-click shot interface has been a staple of the series since 1998, and it’s still included here. You press a button once to start it, once to set the power, and a third time to set the impact. If you want a slice, hook, topspin or backspin it’s as easy as holding the D-pad in the proper direction while taking the swing. It’s a tried-and-true system that still works well, and just about anyone can understand it.

The brand new swing mechanic that’s included isn’t quite as successful. It’s still basically a three-click system, but instead of watching a meter you watch your character’s actual swing and try to match it to a ghost impression of the player to know when a shot is at maximum power. During the follow-through a reticle will collapse on the ball, and if you time the final button press you’ll strike it perfectly.

The idea sounds great on paper, and for full swings it works very well. It’s when you’re trying to chip or putt that it really becomes an issue. It’s simply too difficult to gauge how much power you’re putting on the shot. The club will flash at 50 and 100 percent power, but that’s not nearly enough when you’re talking about a game of inches. Though you get a little more power with the new swing mechanic, we ended up playing the majority of the game using the old style and did just fine. At least we weren’t blowing shots over the green or leaving them woefully short.

As mentioned previously, as you play through the match option you unlock new players, clubs, and balls. Each has its own set of ratings that you can actually feel, and you’ll have to play for a while before you can even access the more powerful spins. Each shot can be set to three different levels of power. Make perfect contact and your shot gets a boost, but the margin of error is smaller with the more power you add. This risk/reward system has worked well in the past and it does here as well.

And that’s really the story with Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. It does the same things well that the series has been doing well for the past decade. Where is the Six Axis swing control? Where are more over-the-top shot types? It plays it safe, making for a golf game that anyone can get into and play, and the addition of the new swing mechanic is basically a wash.

If you’re looking for chibi golfers you’ve come to the right place. This game is stuffed with them--big-headed, doe-eyed duffers with lots of personality. Unfortunately, this is really where the compliments end. The courses are barren, objects aren’t affected by the weather, trees shimmer like a PlayStation 2 game, and overall, we definitely expected more from a golf game for the PS3. There’s not much of a gallery, but the few random spectators that you see running around the course are constructed of a couple hundred polygons. The game has a crisp, clean appearance, but it’s also very simple looking. Aside from the nicely detailed character models there’s not a lot to get excited about.

If you’ve been playing Hot Shots Golf for any length of time, you’ll be able to jump right in here and begin grinding to unlock all the courses and characters. If you’re new to arcade-style golf, the learning curve is slight yet it maintains a certain level of realism that makes it digestible to either crowd. The real disappointment is that so little has changed, so unless you’re pumped to see high-res versions of the Hot Shots characters or can’t resist some online links, you can get the same experience a lot cheaper on the PSP.