Overcoming Handicaps
Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds may well be the best golf game ever made. Find out why inside.
Published: April 7, 2008
Though I'm not trying to slight the offline play in any way, it's online that the game really finds its legs -- and also where some key issues start to crop up. There's absolutely some tangible rewards to playing through the murderously difficult final courses offline (mainly in that you're actually familiar with them when you go online), but playing against AI golfers with their no-way-that's-possible comebacks and insane shots can't hold a candle to playing -- and beating -- actual humans. This is both the best and worst parts of the multiplayer experience, mainly because there's nothing like squeaking out a win when you can watch someone blow a putt while you chip in a birdie, but when it comes time to do a little victory dance, you're stuck with only text chat that's truncated to a painfully small number of characters.
It becomes an even bigger issue while trying to set up games in the myriad themed lobbies the game offers when you first sign in. There are canned comments mapped to the L2 menu, and you can pull up an in-game keyboard to chat, but again, you're limited in how much you can say at a time, and since most aren't playing with a USB keyboard, the experience can be excruciatingly slow. Even worse, there's no way to invite friends to your game, and aside from being able to sign up for scheduled tournaments, there's nothing in the way of clan-like clubs to spawn rivalries. I realize this isn't Resistance: Tees of Man, but it'd be nice to really blow out the online to something the PS2 couldn't match.
If there is one area where the game is clearly a PS3 effort, it's in the visuals. One could nitpick about things like foliage looking a little weird and shadows being suspect at times, but taken as a whole, the graphics are sublime. The almost plastic-like look of the characters at first seems to clash with the lush, stylized world, but the more I played the game, the more little things like curly wisps of wind arcing through the sky or the way you'll see an explosion of confetti or even full-on near-anime-level visual effects celebrations on holes-in-one started to link the two visual styles. There are moments (particularly online) where you'll get a bunch of slowdown on certain camera angles, but rarely do these crop up while taking a shot.
Things are little less advanced on the audio front. Yes, the sound effects are all nice and clean, and the vocal work, such as it is, does the job of giving the characters some personality (whether or not you actually like those personalities is another matter entirely), but at no point to the loungy, laid-back tunes ranging from wistful melodies in arid plains and playful oompah music while in the European courses really feel like they're tapping the full potential of the hardware. It's all solid and well-done stuff, sure, but hardly a treat for that 7.1 setup you just bought.
Fortunately, few games are able to deliver with the same consistency and with the same level of charm and instant appeal like the Hot Shots Golf series. Whereas it could be said that things were starting to stagnate a little in games past, the new swing mechanic and what could be a solid approach to extending the game online (and through downloadable content in the future) have breathed new life into the franchise.
Once you've taken the time to adjust to the nuances, the new swing mechanic completely changes the game, yet retains the same pick-up-and-play feel that the series has always had. For me, that equals the best Hot Shots experience I've had yet, and may well secure a spot as the best golf game ever made. Yes, it's that good. Which is why you should buy it as soon as you finish reading this. Go on, git!
