Real World Golf uses the award-winning Gametrak motion-sensing technology, and it couldn’t be simpler - just pick up the included mini-club, and swing to play! The Gametrak system tracks every aspect of your golf swing in real time, and supposedly gives all the realism and subtlety of real golf, you adjust your swing to pitch, fade, spin and draw the ball. 'Yeah right' we thought – this is going to be just another gimmicky peripheral that soon gathers dust in the cupboard under the stairs… But if you likes your game of hitty-ball-down-the-hole, this is as interactive as it gets without actually joining some snooty club full of Sunday morning hackers. Introduction and comments by golf legend Peter Alliss get real World Golf off to a good start.
The Gametrak itself is a well made and chunky piece of kit, and is dead easy to set up; the base unit sits on the floor with a lead to a foot mat select button (to call up menus etc). You connect it to the PS2 via a USB port and to yourself via velcro-fastened Trak Gloves (they’re sort of fingerless glove-ettes – yeah we made that name up) that are in turn connected to the base unit via sprung-loaded and incredibly strong nylon cord. Then when you swing over the base unit it senses the speed and direction of where both hands swing, and the on-screen golfer is synchronised with your perfectly controlled swing (or hopelessly wild flailing as may be the case). Thoughtfully a mini golf club is also supplied with the game so you have something to hold on to, although we found that the Gamecell fly swatter makes a better “swoosh” noise when you swing it. The club certainly helps with the immersion factor (and cleverly it’s double-sided so left-handers don’t feel left out), which is about as good as you can get without actually hitting a golf ball at your TV (expensive). It should be said that the game benefits hugely from having an eye-level (when standing) TV, but how many people have that?
Just like when you start the real game of golf, straight 100% shots are satisfying and rare as rocking horse poo, and 70% hooks and slices annoying and common, but with practice comes consistency. There are three levels of difficulty, but Gametrak makes Real World Golf enough like the real game to mean that some people just won’t ever be any good at it, because swinging accurately really is that important – success in RWG is no simple matter of moving a joystick backwards and forwards or pressing a button three times...
Real World Golf is developed by Aqua Pacific – a name that stuck in our minds, and it turns out to be for a wrong reason. They’re also responsible for the dire budget title International Golf Pro, but fortunately they seem to have learned a few things since then, and RWG is a better looking game and a heck of a lot more playable with the Gametrak controller than their previous effort was with a joypad. Graphically the game is nice enough, not quite up to Tiger Woods’ standards but the graphics do their job.
An excellent tutorial teaches you what to do and what NOT to, and the different shots that are possible (you can spin the ball back by swinging through slightly lower for instance). There are several mini games included; Target Golf, Hoops, Darts & Smashing Fun, which all have limited appeal as a solo pursuit but play well as ‘party games’. You can also play a 9 holes or the full 18 on any of the 4 courses with up to 3 other players – fortunately they had the sense to let one player finish a hole before you swap over, or the whole glove-swapping thing could have become farcical – this is the Gametrak’s only weak point as far as a multiplayer game goes, otherwise it’s great fun, and way more interactive than other golf games can ever be – highly recommended to golf nuts everywhere who are fed up with the muddy trouser bottoms and slow rounds they get every weekend, but need their golf ‘fix’.
The Gametrak itself as a piece of hardware is clever and has great potential (much like Sony’s own EyeToy), and it’s down to In2games as to how this potential is used. Darkwind (a fighting game) is already available, and other titles including Real World Basketball, Dance Mayhem and Sword Master are promised soon.
click below to visit the IN2GAMES website
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
