Mr. Golf (PlayStation 2)

Mr. Golf is a one to four player golf game. This is not a simulation where real players and courses are recreated in minute photorealistic detail, this is a fun game where the players are all drawn in a cute cartoony style and the courses are all fictitious.

There are two modes of play, stroke play or match play. Matches can be over three, six, nine or eighteen holes. Initially there are six characters to play as and just four courses but others can be unlocked by winning full eighteen hole matches.
There is no player creation feature, no career mode and no difficulty settings in this game. There is background music and an in-game commentary which was a surprise but this is limited to stock phrases such as ‘Nice shot!’, ‘You’ve kept it on the fairway’, ‘Bad luck’ and so on.

There is an in-game tutorial which covers all the controls. By default the right analogue stick controls the shot, the further back it is pulled the more power is transferred to the swing when the stick is pushed forward, while the left analogue stick aims the shot so that the player can allow for the wind. There is a game configuration option that swaps the use of the right/left sticks around. The ‘best’ club is auto selected by the game but this can be changed by using R1/L1 to cycle through available clubs, R2/L2 change the player’s stance. When taking a shot the player can take as many practice swings as they like to gauge how much back swing they want to use, the right D-Pad button swaps the player from practice mode into shot mode to take the actual shot.

The full game has fourteen playable characters, eight courses plus ‘mirrored courses’ all of which can be played in any of four seasons.