This week’s challenge comes from Fighting Golf. Released in 1988, this game is fully endorsed by Lee Trevino, one of golf’s best personalities. This game let’s you choose from four golfers and a US course or a Japanese course. The four golfers have different tendencies. Pretty Amy is the easiest to aim but has a weak shot, Big Jumbo hits it hard but his cursor moves very fast. Lee Trevino is called Crazy Mex and is between the two. Miracle Chosuke is about the same as Trevino.
The presentation on this game is very good. The holes are large and detailed, and it feels like someone put a lot of thought into their layout. Music plays between shots and doesn’t detract from concentration, though it does stop abruptly during the back swing. Each character is well-designed and reacts to really good and really bad shots.
Despite this, the game is maddening. It’s really hard. Even slight variations in accuracy or power will hamper the shot significantly. This would be fine except that the fairways are typically very narrow or have trees placed directly in the middle of your shot, and even landing in light rough will mar the distance of the next swing. Each hazard has a profound effect on your shot, but it’s difficult to determine how much impact it will have. One hole in particular had a wall of trees surrounded by super rough that forces you to hit the ball sideways! There is a practice mode, but I couldn’t figure out how to get past the tee shot.
Putting can be either really easy or very hard. Sometimes it feels predetermined. I once had a birdie attempt that ended up as a +5. I also sank a thirty footer. This game takes a lot of patience and time to get through. Each shot needs to be perfectly aimed and hit. It’s unfortunate that this game demands so much perfection, because it’s fairly fun to play otherwise. I figured my scores would drop after playing a few rounds, but I realized that the insane difficulty of the course prevented any chance for improvement. Best score: +26. Ouch.
-mlbradley
durden26@comcast.net