There are few moments in my gaming life where I am surprised by the content a gamer offers. The Dark Souls series, when it was called Demon’s Souls, knocked me on my arse by its lack of reasoning and insane difficulty. Later on I grew to love it, and its terrible abuse to my emotions, and it soon joined a category of its own in my gaming life. The same goes for the last Naruto game, which historically, in my opinion, was a cash-grab when it came to new titles in the series, but the new one released this year was/is still unbelievably fantastic for what it had to offer. All of this jibber-jabber brings me to my latest game review — Winning Putt. A golf game.
I know what you’re saying, “Seriously, a golf game is surprising? Does it have sharks? Monsters? Cartoon-y anime characters that flash you the peace sign when you get a birdie?” Not quite. It does have what I consider a set of unexpected elements, which is massive multiplayer online features and small, unique perks that make golfing just a bit more entertaining. Yes, you read that right, this is an MMO golf game. You exist with other players at a singular country club, level up as you progress in the game as a golfer, customize your character with clothing and items to make you a better golfer and, and this is a big one, you can enchant clubs and items to help you improve your game. It’s like if there was a wizard-ing world of golfing. The very idea improves the entire concept of golf. No, seriously. I played that sh*t in high school and it was boring then and just as boring right now, so adding magic to the mix certainly made it much better.
Anyway, those are extra perks to improve a typical golf structure.
Beyond those things, you do get a straight-up golf game that features tournaments, training, a short stand-alone option (where you play six holes at a time) and head-to-head action against other players (one-on-one). The amount of options can be overwhelming at times, especially with a populated server, though the level requirement helps to make those a multi-step process to play. For example, you can’t get into certain features or be invited to tournaments without being at least level 10 (that doesn’t go for everything, but it is a firm line drawn in the sand). You’ll spend a good chunk of time playing stand alone and one-on-one games to get there, which is great because you’ll need the experience. The fact these options exist make the game an MMO, as well as deeper than it needs to be for a golfing experience (I like that portion of it).
The incentive to get better and keep going in Winning Putt comes in three forms: XP, gold and platinum. While I didn’t earn quite as much platinum as I wanted to in the game, coming from success on the course (birdies, pars, etc.), I did earn plenty of gold and XP. The XP levels you up. You earn it from doing great things on the course, completing challenges given to you (kind of like side quests in Skyrim) and from beating opponents in one-on-one situations. The gold helps you to purchase enchantments, some items and helps you repair your clubs, which is a downer in the scheme of things.
Staying on that topic of repair, you wear/tear clubs as you play the courses. You will have to repair them to keep using them or run the risk of losing them in the middle of a course due to breakage. This is part of the MMO experience, though I have to say it’s a bit of ridiculous one. Clubs rarely go bad over time, so to have to constantly repair them is just weird. Don’t get me wrong, you can damage clubs during play in real life, ask my brother Jason, who broke a gold putter one year out of frustration, but it takes effort to hurt them. In Winning Putt, you damage them by using them — regardless of success or failure. Again, it’s a bit of a burden and an element that is way too constant, especially at the beginning.
Anyway, clubs aside, there is plenty of incentive to keep going, as well as microtransactions (which I didn’t experience because Bandai Namco Entertainment loaded me up for the review).
As for technical gameplay, it’s incredibly intuitive, as it follows the same type of control pattern as previous golf games of its type. For example, you have a power meter on the bottom part of your screen. You click the shot button below it to start the power gauge, set it with another click of shot and then watch as the meter indicator goes into an accuracy gauge, which you click shot again to finish the routine. If you hit your power correctly (0%-100%) and swing accurately (color gauge where green is accurate and red is not), then you’ll smack the crap out of the ball. This gameplay control type also features the ability to change clubs and aim your shot depending on what the wind gauge is telling you. Now, all of this sounds simple, and it is, but the club changing during play is a bit wonky.
As you play through the game, the computer will assign you a club that it feels is the best fit for your distance. Any good golf gamer will change their club to get more yardage out of their swing and just use less power to get to where one needs to go. Winning Putt doesn’t like that strategy and actually makes your use of the club of your choice far more difficult than it would usually be, especially in real life. So, the flexibility of the controls is a bit questionable, though you can enjoy it without being independent. It does bother me, though. For example, when playing a par 4 and you smack the ball halfway across the course, you might be given a 3-wood to finish the job (it covers 145yards, you have 162 yards to go). The 5-wood covers 165 yards, so why can’t I use that? The club type comes from the same family as the 3-wood, so technically using it in this situation wouldn’t be much different. Sadly, when/if you change over to the 5-wood, the accuracy gauge goes nuts and makes it near impossible for you to hit the ball the same way as you would a 3-wood. It’s baffling why this happens and irritating because it takes away the gamer’s freedom of choice. Outside of this complaint, I did like the simplicity of the controls. It certainly did fit the bill.
Overall, the gameplay is what you would expect from a golf game, and then some. It does a helluva job making the experience an easy-to-pick-up sorta deal and adds some unique flavor to remind you that this is far more than another boring golf game. It’s not perfect in gameplay, but it’s good enough to enjoy, especially with the added options and perks.
On the presentation side of the fence, the game is something close to last generation console graphics. Nothing special, sometimes jittery graphics due to poor rendering or just bland textures, but online only games like this typically don’t shoot for the stars unless they have Final Fantasy in the name. The worse the network connection, the jitterier the graphics and gameplay are going to be, so you’ve been warned. Those with slow networks need to upgrade or rethink their gaming life choices. Pretty isn’t here at all, but what golf game is pretty? I believe the answer is none because EA is still stuck in the same place.
At the end of the day, is this game fun? I had to pry myself away from it, despite its flaws, to finally write this review. It’s a good game to get into and the matches don’t last long, so you’re not completely committed to anything long. It has some fun replay value to it and the magical enhancements add some great value to the experience. There’s a lot of love that went into creating this and it’s very much there in the get-go. I think you’ll find some fun in it, especially if you like golf. If you don’t, I’m not sure this will change your mind about it.
Anyway, onto the summary!
