Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational Review
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The Good
The Bad
Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational is a surprisingly addictive and enjoyable game to both newcomers and veterans.
HSG is fun and challenging, with great graphics and realistic gameplay that will have you engrossed for hours.
Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational proves that more of the same can still be really fun.
If things become too difficult, you can switch to easy mode when you're selecting which tournament to enter. The hellish bunkers and chaotic weather conditions won't be affected by flicking this switch; rather, your artificial opponents just perform slightly worse. It's a smart way to keep the core elements of World Invitational intact without making the game so frustrating that you give up completely. One thing that would have been appreciated is the option to quickly restart. If you find yourself ringing up embarrassing bogeys, you have to quit out to the main menu to start over, which takes a minute or two as you sit through load screens. Considering how tricky this game becomes, it would be nice if you could just immediately restart instead of having to suffer through that wait.
Hot Shots Golf started on the PlayStation many moons ago, and though the gameplay hasn't changed, it's a great fit for a portable system. You can finish an 18-hole round in roughly 20 minutes, and even if you can't quite wrap up a tournament before your train ride finishes, you can easily halt your progress mid-round and finish up at a later point. Considering how difficult later courses become and how many unlockables there are, just being able to make slight progress wherever you are is a huge bonus.
There are a few touch features thrown in to remind you that, yes, you are playing a game on the Vita. If you swirl your finger on the back panel you can check the distance and surface area of nearby parts of the course, which isn't very useful but does let you satisfy your curiosity. By squeezing your character between the front and back panel, you can pick him or her up to adjust where the tee-off point is. Again, this isn't often necessary, but it sure is cute. The character squirms as your godlike fingers dangle him or her in the air, so it's worth doing just to show off your prodigious strength. Another slight perk from the touch-screen integration is animal taunting. See that squirrel hanging out by the hole? Give it a quick jab and watch it scurry away. Yes, none of these uses are particularly inventive, but they do elicit the occasional smile and won't detract from your enjoyment.
Ample single-player content should keep even long-distance commuters occupied for quite a long time, but if you crave more competition, multiplayer serves its role well. You can challenge your friends in either online or local games, and both work without any technical hiccups. There are plenty of options to mess around with, so you can set a limit on how quickly your opponent has to shoot, where the pin is placed, if you can put spin on your ball or not, and many other variables. The Daily Tournament is also a nice bonus. You play these courses alone, but you post your scores to an online leaderboard, so you have a new challenge to measure up to every day. Multiplayer is not one of Hot Shots' strong points because you're ultimately playing against yourself and the course more than other players, no matter which mode you choose. But there are enough options in World Invitational to give serious Hot Shotters a viable way to extend the life of this game even further.
Clap Hanz has the Hot Shots formula down cold, though its unwillingness to mess with the formula is the only blemish to be found. The well-designed courses complement the controls beautifully, urging you to try your hand at the many complex shots in order to lower your score. But because this game does so little to differentiate itself from previous games in the series, it can easily stumble into a predictable rut. Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational doesn't push the Vita in unique ways nor does it push digital golfing to a new plane. But won't even care about those things when you're trying to sink an important putt on the 18th green.
By
Tom Mc Shea, Editor
Tom Mc Shea loves platformers and weighty moral decisions. Some call him a T-Rex with bigger arms, some call him a gorilla with smaller arms -- you can just call him the jerk who hates all the things you love and loves all the things you hate.
17 comments
i don't believe i've played any of the previous versions of this game.. i don't much care for the real sport of golf but i do find it fun, yet challenging, as a video game... the Vita game is fun, colorful and does occasionally present a challenge... its a solid round of golf for a handheld.. i do recommend it if you like the previous versions or golf in general...
In my opinion, Everybody?s Golf just works better on the handhelds. This one is by far my favorite version(keep in mind i loved the first installment on the PSP). The character design overall is better and more attractive compared to the PS3 models. Tons of unlockables as always. Various control schemes are appreciated. Courses look nice aside from a little pop up here and there mostly in the trees. The voice acting is pretty good, other than some of the caddie voices are annoying(maybe due to the repeating banter at every turn). All in all, the addiction factor is in full effect.
I'm starting to think that reviewers should star doing double review for sequels. One for fans of the series and one for people who have never played a game in the series. So basically this game is a 8 or 9 for people that haven't played any of the other games in the series.
This will be one of the first PSVita games I get a year from now after the price drops on the system. I own all the Hot Shot games ever since the PS1 version. I completed the first game on the PS1 & PSP. I can understand the score, as the game hasn't really advanced to the next stage. Graphics and sounds are pretty much the same. Only changes really is the new characters, animations and courses. If Clap Hanz really wanted to advance the game, they should have included a course editor and allowed the courses to be shared by gamers. Also, they should have made this into an MMO type game where you can play against other golfers from around the world in RT in a tournament setting. With yearly leaderboards and price money won. In career mode, players could go on a 30 years tour and play on 15 - 20 different course each year. Player created course could be included as well for variety. Your player would age and as he got to 50yrs old he/she could either retire or do a 10yr Senior Tour. Money won could be used to buy better equipment, clothes, cars, a house, boats and other luxuries to accommodate your lifestyle for when you retire. Once retired a final grade could be given for your career along with your career stats and any records broken. Also better commentary should be added to this game as well.
@SolidSnake35 I explained why this game is very good. It seems as though you're interpreting a 7.5 as a bad thing, whereas it's actually a big compliment.
@Kevin-V -- But then surely the review should state why that is? Why it is that a perfect Everybody's Golf game isn't worthy of a ten? Pong wouldn't get a 10 because, well, it's pong. But you'd need a better argument than that in this case. In any case, I can appreciate that this game hasn't changed much. But it hasn't seen a release since the PS3 launched... and that's a long time. Compare that with Call of Duty, which is released every year, but still gets consistently high scores. I can't imagine they changed much in that game: you're always shooting people in different environments. Similarly, in golf, you play 18 holes on different courses.
@SolidSnake35 @kdokey -- We have said this more times than you can imagine, but: Games don't start at a 10 and have points marked off. You might play the best Pong clone ever made, with the most realistic physics and the most beautiful paddles you ever did see. That doesn't mean it's a 10. I would think this would be pretty obvious.
You can view our long-standing review philosophy by clicking "about our rating system" on any review page. You will learn important things there; I suggest looking under the section titled: "We Take Time and Originality Into Account." We have never made our scoring system a secret.
@SolidSnake35 that's the way Gamespot scores all their games. If it isn't considering "new or innovating" it loses two points. Look at the Twisted Metal review for another example.
If its being the same game as previous ones is the only blemish, shouldn't this have scored a 9.5? Seems harsh to give a game with one "blemish" a 7.5.
Hmmmm...this review fails to answer the one question I'd been asking myself. Does it actually have any new courses compared to the two PSP games and World Tour on the PS3, or does it simply recycle the old ones?
so basically it's the same as other hot shot golf game, at least is as good as previous games, but 7.5 seems to appearing more in launch vita games, hope you don't take too much time for more reviews
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