Everybodys Golf World Tour (PS3)

.../> Fans of the original Everybodys Golf franchise will feel straight at home with the opening screens and the menu system, and anyone new to the game will not feel overwhelmed by confusing menu's. Everything is laid-out in a straight forward manner and is very easy to find.

In the single player game, you can choose either "Challenge Mode", "Stroke", "Multiplay", Online" or "Training"
...tournaments to win prizes like, different clubs, balls, caddies and finally extra players. The tournaments can be either 9 or 18 holes. Plus some of them have a specific set of rules to them. Some have big cups - where the hole is twice the size of a normal one, some will add +2 to your score if you land in a bunker or the rough, plus lots more different rules. Everytime you win a tournament you are awarded one of the prizes, and a VS challenge meter ... more

Cartoon Golf at its best

I used to love playing the PSP version of this game, so I was really looking forward to playing Everybody's Golf on the PS3. And I was not at all disappointed.

Fans of the original Everybodys Golf franchise will feel straight at home with the opening screens and the menu system, and anyone new to the game will not feel overwhelmed by confusing menu's. Everything is laid-out in a straight forward manner and is very easy to find.

In the single player game, you can choose either "Challenge Mode", "Stroke", "Multiplay", Online" or "Training"

In this Challenge Mode you enter various tournaments to win prizes like, different clubs, balls, caddies and finally extra players. The tournaments can be either 9 or 18 holes. Plus some of them have a specific set of rules to them. Some have big cups - where the hole is twice the size of a normal one, some will add +2 to your score if you land in a bunker or the rough, plus lots more different rules. Everytime you win a tournament you are awarded one of the prizes, and a VS challenge meter fills up, when you reach the end of the VS challenge meter you can then get to play against another CPU character, and if you win you are then able to use that character. Once you beat the VS challenge, your rank goes up and you are then able to play the next round of challenges. The Characters skill levels ranges from Novice, Intermediate and finally Expert. The higher the level the further you will be able to hit the ball, but the control over the ball goes down.

With "Stroke" play, you select the course you want to play, how many holes, etc. No prizes are awarded in this mode.

In "Multi-Play" you can play with 1 to 4 players in Stroke or Match games, stroke is the best score overall and match is the first to win 3 holes ahead of the other player. You can chose what course you want to play on, how many holes and whatever rules you would like (Big Cup, Bunker +2, Need to chip-in one shot and lots more). A Nice feature is that you don't need 4 controllers, you can pass around just the one!

Online - well speaks for itself really, you can go online creates games and play against other people from all around the world and/or your friends. When you are online you walk area a lobby area. Here you can walk around looking for friends/other players and enter games and tournaments. There are a couple of different modes while playing games against other people, you can play like you do in multi-play where one players takes a turn, then another, etc or you can play in a new style of game called Real Games. In these games all the players tee-off at the same time on the same hole, you can see other players on the course (you cant hit them!!) playing their shots and there is also a time limit on each hole (don't worry it is plenty of time). These games don't take as long as the normal games and are what I play the most. Games can have normal rules or they can have a variety of the crazy ones.

Real Tournaments are the same as Real Games expect with more people (upto 50 in one tournament), and prizes are given at the end. These are clothes for your online lobby character (well, thats all I've won!) . These are great fun as well.

The longer you use a character (single player and online) then the more loyalty points you get from that character, as you build up loyalty you will be able to pull off more spectacular shots (the "Homing Shots", "Spiral Shots") you can pull off. You also get extra outfits for the character and you are able to use a higher level of golf club.

The graphics on Everybody's Golf are excellent and cartoony, even though they are only 720p they are still very very sharp and detailed. The courses (of which there are 6) are lovely, and have lots of little details in them. For example on the "Safari" course, there are wild animals roaming around the course, and on another there is a train track going through the course. Sometimes its nice watching someone play just so you can see all the details in the background. The Character (there are 15 different ones) animation is superb as well, they all have their own warmup routines, celebrations and disappointment animations.

The sound is ok, the sound of the crowd, your caddie and the effects of the club hitting the ball etc are fine but the music that plays in the background is very cheesey and can get slightly annoying. I suppose the music fits in with the cartoony style of the game and you can turn it off in the options, so this is only a very small complaint.

There are two different methods which you can use to hit the ball. The traditional method which is a bar along the bottom of the screen, you press once to get a power gauge moving up the bar, press again to set the power, the gauge then starts moving down and you press a third time to stop it on a white bar. You can miss the white bar, but depending on how far you miss it by the worse you're shot will be, too far and your shot will go anywhere, close and it will go near enough where you want it. If you get a perfect impact you can spin the ball forwards, backwards, or make it curve with sidespin.

The second method is a new feature for this game and is call "Advanced Shots". In this mode there is no power bar at the bottom. You press once to start the swing, the character then begins the swing and at the top you press a second time (you can press half way to select 50% power, three-quarters of the way for 75% power, etc). The club then begins it's decent and a large circle appears around the ball, as the club moves the circle gets smaller and smaller, and when it is on the ball you click for a third time. Like the traditional method if you get a perfect impact you can add al kinds of spin on the ball.

I prefer the Advanced method but some like the traditional, so its which you prefer the most. At first I found putting difficult on the Advanced mode, but I soon got used to it. It would be nice to be able to change to Traditional for putting, but its only a very minor gripe.

The physics of the ball are really very good it does thing what a real golf ball should, but the game is not meant to be a golf simulation so there are some special shots you can pull off. For example if you put super backspin on the ball, hit a perfect impact and hit the flag, not only will the ball spin backwards it will "home" into the hole.

This is a very accessible game, which is so easy to pick up and play, but it will take time to master. It is cartoony and there are shots that are impossible to do in real life, but if you dismiss it for that, you will be missing out on one of the best games on the PS3, not only in single player but online as well. Don't expect a Tiger Woods game, expect something better.

Its a game that doesn't take itself to seriously and is all the better for it! 

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