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So, we finally made a Twitter thingy.  You can follow it here.

It took a while but I think I've finally been bit by the golfing bug.  I spent a few months swinging through Tiger Woods PGA Tour (the 360 version) but True Swing Golf elicited the thought, "Maybe I should try real golf."  It seems like a minor thought but it rarely presents itself. (When was the last time you thought "Maybe I should single-handedly stop an alien invasion"?)

The nuts and bolts of True Swing Golf is this: the top screen displays your golfer and related course information, the bottom screen is where all the swinging happens.  On the default setting you draw the club back by touching the head, pulling it down then sliding the stylus forward to strike the ball.  How far you pull the club back, what portion of the ball you hit, and how fast you slide the stylus forward greatly effect the outcome of the shot.  And in a nod to realism you can even whiff a shot! (This happened to me most while traveling over bumpy services.)  It falls into that cliched category of controls as "Easy to learn, difficult to master."

 

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The game seems to put a limit on just how hard you can smack a ball.  You may be able to zip the stylus at the speed of sound but the resulting power will be the same as if you took a more "leisurely" swing.  Speed still matters but it's not as important as you might think.

There are more or less 15 courses to play through and the traditional cold/wet/dry

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environments it actually doesn't feel like enough variety.  No one else has complained of this, so I know I'm in the minority.  Maybe I just wanted something more outlandish than the traditional fairways and greens.

An element that remains inconsistent is the computer-controlled AI which can fluctuate between incompetent to god-life over the course of a single round -- it doesn't matter which no-name golfer you play against.  If you're not consistently on top of your own game, your opponent can close almost any gap.  It can lead to some frustration as a round that's seemingly in-hand suddenly gets away from your.  Playing against human opponents over wi-fi can be just as frustrating (depending on who you're golfing against) but at least you can take your frustration out on somebody.

While an in-depth golfer creation mode certainly isn't a necessity it has become a defacto standard.  In Tournament mode there's the ability to earn stat points and purchase new equipment and clothes, but more choices from the outset would have been welcome.

The graphics and audio have been described by some as "flat" and "unexciting" but my own brain has a hard time reconciling those descriptions with the game.  It's golf for crying out loud!  What were they expecting?  The best that anyone can hope for is that the graphics can convey the necessary information to make a good shot. True Swing Golf manages this easily.  Of course, there's always room for improvement.  The "swoosh, pop" of smacking a ball down the fairway never gets old.

True Swing Golf feels a bit generic, as if this first effort was used mainly to test the waters.  It still manages to offer some entertainment and fun.

- Omni

(March 8, 2006)

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