NYC Urban Golf Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Forget about hitting some balls on the driving range, why not dodge cars and hit buildings instead?

Golf games are very common nowadays so I-Play have decided to mix it up a little bit with an urban golf game. For those who don't know, urban golf is basically playing golf in the streets and using everyday objects as targets or obstacles. In this version you have to hit dumpsters, trash cans (or rubbish bins as we like to call them), statues and even the cab of a crane!

The game is well presented and has a "street" feel to it. Which means a lot of NYC gangsta slang which is fine but does sound a little funny when reading it. You play the part of an up and coming urban golfer who's being trained by Trash Can Willy, and old star who's washed up. A bit like Tin Cup meets 8 Mile. Anyways, the still shots of the people are nice but for me the graphics are a little small. Admittedly I was playing on a K600 which has a pretty small screen, but instead of being able to scan around a large course with a lot more detail, the developers have gone for scanning around a smaller course but with more visible on screen. One of the things on the screen is a map which shows you where you are, the flag is and any cars coming your way. You have to watch out for this as you can get run over which isn't good! The animation is nice and smooth with the ball physics pretty standard. The top down view does make things look a little bit too much 2D but there are some nice effects like neon signs and the moving cars.

Sound is fairly average, there is a nice tune when you load the game and it does sound quite funky but you only get one loop!! What's that about? There's nothing during the game itself. There is a swing sound and ball sound when you take your shots and you also get a little bit of speech when you hit your targets, but again this is more street than anything as you hear the words like "Yeah!" and "Awesome!" (seems a litte dated) instead of the usual "nice shot".

Controls take a little getting used to and aren't as intuitive or as standard like most golf games. There is a power bar which is very simple to use and you press 5 to stop it. No return accuracy press or sweet spot hit, just one power bar and you're away. Pressing up and down changes club and you can see this in the ball trajectory which is a little red dot. I have a little niggle in that it's not always easy to follow this line as you have to scroll the view at the same pace as the dot to see where the ball will end up. If you want to change the shot direction then you have to do this and again scroll to see where it's going to end up. Very frustrating but you'll see what I mean when you play the game. The left softkey allows you to pause and then the directonal pad / stick lets you view the area. When not paused left and right will rotate the angle of your shot. You can add spins and also aftertouch but this didn't seem to make that much of a difference in the early stages as you're not trying to sink balls but rather hit largeish objects (most of the time).

The game plays well, with two modes, quick play and tournament. They are fairly self explanatory, but I don't yet know what happens if you complete tournament mode as I'm still playing. The opponents really aren't that good and you can save your progress between holes by quitting to the menu at any time. This means if a hole went bad, just quit and you can start the hole again. The points seem to be slightly unbalanced as if you are up by one stroke on a hole, this translates into a large points advantage and at the end of the day, what do points make? Prizes. Well, no actually, but it does mean that if you get up by a few shots on the holes, it will be very hard for the AI to come back. In fact the game plays a bit too easy in the early levels. And you also get mayhem points for hitting things like bystanders or cars or shop windows.

Additionally, with the aid of the pointer the game is a little bit simplified as you can see where your shot is going. None of the skill of judgement really and while a pointer is good for long sloping greens, in the urban setting it makes the hole a little bit too easy. There should have been an option to turn this off for more of a challenge. In the quick play you get to play the bosses you have defeated in tournament mode and they are set in different areas of the city which makes for some variety.

The game is somewhat addictive and the holes are short enough to be balanced but there's nothing really new or innovative about the game. It's basically a decent offering in the field of urban golf and of a quality that you have become used to expecting from I-Play.