Hot Shots Golf 3
Clap Hanz delivers another brilliant and instantly accessible golf game, but is there any innovation left in the series?
Published: April 4, 2002
If you've read any of the dozens of other reviews of any of the Hot Shots games, you've probably seen more than a handful that started with the words, "I hate golf video games…" That statement will almost always be followed up with something to the effect of, "but I love Hot Shots Golf." It's just the nature of Hot Shots to appeal to anyone who hates the plodding, uber-laid-back style of traditional golf. Like just about any sport, so much of the real-life game of golf is the social aspect. It's a great game to bet with friends against because two people with near-equal handicaps can trade wagers on just about every hole with different results every time. The problem is, when you condense the game of golf into a digital form, you have to strip out the social aspect, leaving you with nothing but a slow, cumbersome game that has no personality save for the artist on the cover of the box.
Much of the boredom that comes from playing a golf game stems from the pacing, which Hot Shots has aimed to speed up since the first game's ground rules turned the genre on its ear. Camelot kicked the pace up a few notches by cutting out extraneous animations and adding shortcuts for those that just wanted to play a few holes. They added personality by creating hilarious super-deformed big-headed players and gave the whole feel a cheery, upbeat feel with playful music. It helped that the engine, despite looking relatively cartoony, offered an incredibly flexible and robust representation of most normal course elements. Trees didn't look like crappy low-res 2D sprites, and the ball exploded with very subtle effects.
When the second game came along, a new developer was at the helm, but the sequel remained remarkably true to the first game, incorporating everything that made it fun (but toned down the big-headed look a bit), and adding very slight upgrades to the graphics. Clap Hanz Limited, the same internal team that handled the second PlayStation Hot Shots, has returned for third installment, mirroring their first effort almost exactly; nothing radical has happened, but small graphical upgrades and very minor tweaks – especially closer to the hole – have helped push the game to pretty much the farthest the core design will allow without really breaking something.
That may be Hot Shots 3's biggest problem; the ground rules set by Camelot and the basic gameplay structure was so good yet so specific, that making any radical alterations to the formula will probably unbalance everything else. The game is by no means bad, and if you were a fan of the first two games, this should be an instant purchase, but there's only so much Hot Shots you can take before you start craving something new and innovative about the whole experience. That's not to say there haven't been improvements, of course, since the small tweaks that have been made to make a world of difference in the short game.
Ahh, the short game, bane of my existence. Golf games have never really had a problem replicating the satisfaction of really crushing the ball, but chipping and putting have always annoyed the holy living crap out of me. Just about every effort has been made to make reading the green and managing chip-ins easier, but none have been successful at making it any fun. Even the stellar Tiger Woods 2003 falters when it comes time to stop ripping the crap out of the ball, and start with the tappy-tappy. Perhaps that's why it's so surprising that HSG3's particle grid system works so well. A simple, easy to read grid appears when within chipping or putting distance of the cup. Severity of the slope is indicated by the speed at which tiny particles slide down the gridlines. In an instant, you're able to see how the green breaks at certain points, and you can adjust your putt or chip accordingly. It's a system that's deceptively simple, but offers up a wealth of details with no extraneous or unneeded info. Chip-ins that fall under 15 yards are now shot with a club that's limited to that same 15 yards, virtually eliminating the hair-pullingly frustrating see-saw of overcompensation on shots.
HSG3 lays out the entire blanket of game modes right away, allowing you to play Stroke, Tournament, Versus, Training Modes and check out the National Tournament option where you can plug in passwords to log yourself on a nation-wide leader board. Multi-Player options rely on the standard Stroke and Match Play Modes to keep things competitive, and if you're just itching for a quick game, there's always the Short Course of 9 par three holes to keep things nice and speedy. Though modes are all available from the start, you still have ample extras to unlock like new caddies and golfers. These are gleaned either by taking first in Tournament mode, by purchases made with Hot Shots Points (more on those on a second), or by besting a computer-controlled golfer in Versus Mode.
This wealth of extras to unlock is one of the key things that keeps Hot Shots interesting after playing for hours and hours on end. For those that love the sport, perhaps it's not difficult to play the game until you can't see straight without any other motivation than just, well, playing the game, but for the rest of us, we need some encouragement. This is where Hot Shots points come in. By simply playing well, you'll earn points. Things like fairway hits from the starting tee or staying on track for a par score for the hole or even recovering from a bad lie in a bunker will all net you varying amounts of extra points. Chip-ins, birdies and long putts also help your score. These points can then be cashed in to buy any number of goodies, from different replay angles to extra caddies to on-course wildlife to extra tips, and plenty of other goodies that'll keep you playing for a long, long time.
The Hot Shots series was never one to toot its own graphical horn. The game looks good, yes, but it never did anything to really grab your attention visually. This is the antithesis of the in-your-face approach that most games have taken nowadays, and it's nice to see a game still impress without ever making it obvious that it's doing so. To that end, you won't find many things that jump out at you visually while playing the game, but that doesn't mean there aren't pluses to speak of. HSG3's engine is marvelous at rendering different and varied locales, from snow-capped mountains to blissfully breezy beaches to sun-baked deserts. Pools of water ripple in a way very reminiscent of the liquids in Dark Cloud. It's an almost surreal, reflective look that goes perfectly with the slightly cartoony feel of the game.
For whatever reason (perhaps to try and sway more serious golfers), the localization team here in the US decided to strip out the big-headed cutesy characters from the Japanese version of the game and replace them with mostly average (if not disturbing) characters. They still have plenty of personality, and there isn't any real detraction from the core gameplay, but part of the reason why I dug the older or Japanese versions of the game was that I was looking for something that didn't take itself so seriously. Ah well, whatever it takes to win over a few more gamers, I suppose.
One of the biggest mood setters, however, is the music. The graphics set the stage, and the music helps move everything along with leisurely, upbeat tunes that actually manage to mesh perfectly with the surroundings. While playing in Japan, the music is happy and upbeat, while in the desert, the aural accents have a more spaghetti western feel to them. Each area, be it Japan, Hawaii, Scotland, Arizona, etc. has its own unique musical accompaniment, but still mixes in well with the music heard during menus and the like.
While it's not exactly annoying, the sound effects – or more precisely the sound bites from characters – are endlessly repetitive. Your caddy says the exact same thing every time you hit a hazard or make par or hit a shot onto the green. There's also a string of about four or five comments from sideline observers that usually boils down to the same three phrases uttered by different voices every time. Enjoying the new putting system isn't tough, but it does mean you'll have to hear "don't rush!" about 50 billion times. Luckily the rest of the effects do their job admirably, offering a satisfying steel-on-plastic "clack" as the swing connects or the gentle "thump" of the ball finally connecting with the terra firma after a long drive.
I've held off on mentioning Hot Shots' biggest competition this year, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002, but it does bear mentioning. The two games have the unique distinction of being the best two golf games ever released on a console, and they just happened to come out close to each other. That said, though, there are differences, and your fondness for one or the other could depend entirely on the approach the two make to the game. Tiger, for example, offers up a wealth of real-life extras that only the PGA license will net you, as well as an innovative and frankly fantastic analog swing system. Hot Shots, on the other hand, offers a remarkably robust and pretty engine, a green measurement system with no equal, and tweaks to make it accessible to just about anyone, yes even the ones that hate golf games. Your decision on which to purchase will likely hinge on the kind of game you want. Both offer tons of depth, but if you're like me and you want a game that doesn't quite take itself too seriously and has a wonderfully forgiving short game, you'd be crazy to not pick this game up.
Much of the boredom that comes from playing a golf game stems from the pacing, which Hot Shots has aimed to speed up since the first game's ground rules turned the genre on its ear. Camelot kicked the pace up a few notches by cutting out extraneous animations and adding shortcuts for those that just wanted to play a few holes. They added personality by creating hilarious super-deformed big-headed players and gave the whole feel a cheery, upbeat feel with playful music. It helped that the engine, despite looking relatively cartoony, offered an incredibly flexible and robust representation of most normal course elements. Trees didn't look like crappy low-res 2D sprites, and the ball exploded with very subtle effects.
When the second game came along, a new developer was at the helm, but the sequel remained remarkably true to the first game, incorporating everything that made it fun (but toned down the big-headed look a bit), and adding very slight upgrades to the graphics. Clap Hanz Limited, the same internal team that handled the second PlayStation Hot Shots, has returned for third installment, mirroring their first effort almost exactly; nothing radical has happened, but small graphical upgrades and very minor tweaks – especially closer to the hole – have helped push the game to pretty much the farthest the core design will allow without really breaking something.
That may be Hot Shots 3's biggest problem; the ground rules set by Camelot and the basic gameplay structure was so good yet so specific, that making any radical alterations to the formula will probably unbalance everything else. The game is by no means bad, and if you were a fan of the first two games, this should be an instant purchase, but there's only so much Hot Shots you can take before you start craving something new and innovative about the whole experience. That's not to say there haven't been improvements, of course, since the small tweaks that have been made to make a world of difference in the short game.
Ahh, the short game, bane of my existence. Golf games have never really had a problem replicating the satisfaction of really crushing the ball, but chipping and putting have always annoyed the holy living crap out of me. Just about every effort has been made to make reading the green and managing chip-ins easier, but none have been successful at making it any fun. Even the stellar Tiger Woods 2003 falters when it comes time to stop ripping the crap out of the ball, and start with the tappy-tappy. Perhaps that's why it's so surprising that HSG3's particle grid system works so well. A simple, easy to read grid appears when within chipping or putting distance of the cup. Severity of the slope is indicated by the speed at which tiny particles slide down the gridlines. In an instant, you're able to see how the green breaks at certain points, and you can adjust your putt or chip accordingly. It's a system that's deceptively simple, but offers up a wealth of details with no extraneous or unneeded info. Chip-ins that fall under 15 yards are now shot with a club that's limited to that same 15 yards, virtually eliminating the hair-pullingly frustrating see-saw of overcompensation on shots.
HSG3 lays out the entire blanket of game modes right away, allowing you to play Stroke, Tournament, Versus, Training Modes and check out the National Tournament option where you can plug in passwords to log yourself on a nation-wide leader board. Multi-Player options rely on the standard Stroke and Match Play Modes to keep things competitive, and if you're just itching for a quick game, there's always the Short Course of 9 par three holes to keep things nice and speedy. Though modes are all available from the start, you still have ample extras to unlock like new caddies and golfers. These are gleaned either by taking first in Tournament mode, by purchases made with Hot Shots Points (more on those on a second), or by besting a computer-controlled golfer in Versus Mode.
This wealth of extras to unlock is one of the key things that keeps Hot Shots interesting after playing for hours and hours on end. For those that love the sport, perhaps it's not difficult to play the game until you can't see straight without any other motivation than just, well, playing the game, but for the rest of us, we need some encouragement. This is where Hot Shots points come in. By simply playing well, you'll earn points. Things like fairway hits from the starting tee or staying on track for a par score for the hole or even recovering from a bad lie in a bunker will all net you varying amounts of extra points. Chip-ins, birdies and long putts also help your score. These points can then be cashed in to buy any number of goodies, from different replay angles to extra caddies to on-course wildlife to extra tips, and plenty of other goodies that'll keep you playing for a long, long time.
The Hot Shots series was never one to toot its own graphical horn. The game looks good, yes, but it never did anything to really grab your attention visually. This is the antithesis of the in-your-face approach that most games have taken nowadays, and it's nice to see a game still impress without ever making it obvious that it's doing so. To that end, you won't find many things that jump out at you visually while playing the game, but that doesn't mean there aren't pluses to speak of. HSG3's engine is marvelous at rendering different and varied locales, from snow-capped mountains to blissfully breezy beaches to sun-baked deserts. Pools of water ripple in a way very reminiscent of the liquids in Dark Cloud. It's an almost surreal, reflective look that goes perfectly with the slightly cartoony feel of the game.
For whatever reason (perhaps to try and sway more serious golfers), the localization team here in the US decided to strip out the big-headed cutesy characters from the Japanese version of the game and replace them with mostly average (if not disturbing) characters. They still have plenty of personality, and there isn't any real detraction from the core gameplay, but part of the reason why I dug the older or Japanese versions of the game was that I was looking for something that didn't take itself so seriously. Ah well, whatever it takes to win over a few more gamers, I suppose.
One of the biggest mood setters, however, is the music. The graphics set the stage, and the music helps move everything along with leisurely, upbeat tunes that actually manage to mesh perfectly with the surroundings. While playing in Japan, the music is happy and upbeat, while in the desert, the aural accents have a more spaghetti western feel to them. Each area, be it Japan, Hawaii, Scotland, Arizona, etc. has its own unique musical accompaniment, but still mixes in well with the music heard during menus and the like.
While it's not exactly annoying, the sound effects – or more precisely the sound bites from characters – are endlessly repetitive. Your caddy says the exact same thing every time you hit a hazard or make par or hit a shot onto the green. There's also a string of about four or five comments from sideline observers that usually boils down to the same three phrases uttered by different voices every time. Enjoying the new putting system isn't tough, but it does mean you'll have to hear "don't rush!" about 50 billion times. Luckily the rest of the effects do their job admirably, offering a satisfying steel-on-plastic "clack" as the swing connects or the gentle "thump" of the ball finally connecting with the terra firma after a long drive.
I've held off on mentioning Hot Shots' biggest competition this year, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002, but it does bear mentioning. The two games have the unique distinction of being the best two golf games ever released on a console, and they just happened to come out close to each other. That said, though, there are differences, and your fondness for one or the other could depend entirely on the approach the two make to the game. Tiger, for example, offers up a wealth of real-life extras that only the PGA license will net you, as well as an innovative and frankly fantastic analog swing system. Hot Shots, on the other hand, offers a remarkably robust and pretty engine, a green measurement system with no equal, and tweaks to make it accessible to just about anyone, yes even the ones that hate golf games. Your decision on which to purchase will likely hinge on the kind of game you want. Both offer tons of depth, but if you're like me and you want a game that doesn't quite take itself too seriously and has a wonderfully forgiving short game, you'd be crazy to not pick this game up.
