Golf Video Games

I don't usually watch golf on TV...sometimes I'll watch a few minutes here and there of the ladies' tour...but The Masters was on this past week and I watched some of that. That got my interest up enough to pull out the golfing games I have for my PlayStation 2. I have four...Hot Shots Golf 3, Hot Shots Golf Fore!, Swing Away Golf and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005.

The one golf game I didn't play was Hot Shots Golf 3 but that's like Hots Shots Golf Fore! except that 3 isn't quite as polished as Fore! is. So I didn't feel the need to play it. Hot Shots Golf Fore! is the one I played the most. This one has some nice graphics and a bevy of comical golfers taken from all over the place. There are sexy women, what appears to be an Italian mobster, a guy who could be the Samuel L. Jackson version of Shaft and others. While playing this last night, I found that one character in the game is Jak of the Jak and Daxter video game series. There are also caddies you can use who make comments throughout the game (as do the golfers). I like using the caddie who sounds like Sean Connery. This is probably the most fun golf game I have.

Swing Away Golf is an okay game...it has comical players (some of them) like in the Hot Shots Golf games but not quite as original as the ones in Hot Shots. The graphics also aren't on a par with Hot Shots but I still enjoyed playing it. You also get a caddie who makes comments and tips throughout the game...their talking is more extensive than in Hot SHots. Both these first two games use power meters to play...you feel the meter to the power you want and then try to hit the button again at a precise point to get an accurate swing. Swing Away Golf is a bit trickier than Hot Shots. Both games feature a couple of play modes. On Hot Shots, I've been playing nothing but "Vs." mode because when you beat a player, you then unlock that player you you can play as that character and it usuallyl also unlocks another character you can play against.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 is the most realistic-looking of my golf games...I noticed at Amazon.com that this edition is just about the most expensive of the various Tiger Woods editions...even more so than more recent ones. I think the 2005 one is considered just about the best of them. You get to create your own golfer (which can take some time to do) and then play in various competitions. I used the same blonde female character I had created before. Last night I played against one other opponent and the course was slightly dark, giving the effect it was either very early morning or dusk. There's a few comical moments which seem a bit strange given the very realistic graphics...when my opponent won a hole, he did a dancing jig...and if he missed a close putt, then he finished it using the other end of the golf club like it was a poolstick. The commentary is interesting and also amusing at times. The one thing I consider just a bit odd about the Tiger Woods golf series is there's a new edition every year. I can understand it with baseball and football games so you can always get updated rosters and such but there's no real teams in golf...are they really giving us a lot of new golfers in each edition? Why else give us a new one every year? To keep draining our wallets, I guess...