'cute and boring ?'
 Developer:Clap Hanz
Publisher: Sony
Category: : Sports
Multiplayer: 1 - 50 (PSN)
Official Site
Platform: PlayStation 3
Might look like: /
Date posted: 27 August 2008
Written By: Ian
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The Everybody's Golf series has been going on for years on various Sony platforms, but does it's first PS3 outing live up to the highs of the series, despite its dumbed down gameplay and cutsey graphics?
Will "Everybody's Golf World Tour" deliver on its multiplayer promises, or will it fall short of the green and end up in the bunker?
Basic Gameplay
The gameplay is very basic, eschewing the analogue controls of the Tiger games for the traditional 3-click approach. There is a new 'advanced swing' technique, but this is basically the same. Luckily, despite the simplicity and agedness of this approach, everything works well, and pulling off a good shot is not too difficult, even for a beginner.
However, the bulk of the single player game gets pretty boring, pretty quickly. The 'challenge series' sees you compete in a series of events, but each course must be completed before the next one is unlocked. This sees you grinding out each course for waaaaay too long before you see any variety, which is a real shame, considering the levelling up scheme, and the way you unlock new characters and equipment is pretty cool.
  
Unfortunately, you'll probably be bored before you unlock much cool stuff.
Furthermore, you have to do a LOT of single player before many of the multiplayer (even online) stuff comes your way, making the whole experience a desperate grind to get enough stuff so you can abandon the whole shoddy experience and delve into the online.
Graphics & Sound
Before we get to the graphics, let me start by bashing the sound on the game. Its terrible. Rubbish. Abysmal. The game ships on a blu-ray, yet there is about 1 music track that loops on the menu, and each course has one track as well, which is basically the same.
Each character has about 3 lines of cringe-inducing speech, just to top things off. The crowd are no better, with one terrible German shouting 'DO IIIIIIIIT' at every opportunity.
The ambience is no better. I'd really expect better from a PS3 release, it sounds like a N64 game. Ouch!
The graphics are thankfully better. In fact, despite the cutsey style, which one would think would not be conducive to a next-gen experience, everything is rather impressive. Its not exactly a AAA title to show off to your mates, lacking some of the details or grittiness of more realistic titles, but the courses are crisp and detailed, and so are the characters.
The colour set is lush vibrant and well thought-out, and all of the animations are also excellent.
The frame rate is rock steady, and despite the good levels of detail, loading times are painless, especially for a PS3 release (this is, however, probably due to the near 5GB compulsorily install!).
  
Multiplayer
'50 players!' I cried when the copy of Everybody's golf arrived in the post, excited by this fact.
This seemed too cool to be true. Unfortunately it is. Firstly, whenever I logged on, there were never more than 50 people playing online anyway, so a game with them all seemed unlikely.
Second, there is no voice chat, which relegates you to some basic chat or free text.
Thirdly, everyone just sits in the lobby jumping around rather than actually playing.
Fourthly, you have to register for the tournaments that hold up to 50 players. This involves logging on, registering (at the start, very few tournaments are available to you either), then logging off, and coming back to play at the right time later.
A bizarre, and frankly rubbish system, which is a real shame as the game had so much potential.
Conclusion
"Everybody's Golf World Tour" is a fun title, but it's unfortunately nothing special. The graphics are cute, but also very impressive, but it's let down by several things.
The core gameplay is tight, but terrible sound and lacklustre online means the series has some catching up to do before the game can be in the same category as the ever-more impressive Tiger Woods series of games.
-Ian
Pros:
+ nice graphical style
+ easy to pick up and play
+ lenghty single player
Cons:
- rubbish online
- not that much content
- sound
  
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