Good Family Fun

This game lives up to the Carnival Games line. My kids age 7, 5, and 3 all love it and have lots of fun. As long as you don't expect true minigolf you will enjoy this game.

[Monday, November 24, 2008]

Best mini golf game on the Wii so far

Just to add, I haven't tried Kidz Sports Mini Golf, but seems no one else has yet either. I rented this from blockbstr & beat it in about 5 hours. I really enjoyed it.
Visual Presentation: great colors, good graphics, pretty good layouts. The barker only does lame intros, etc. otherwise keeps his mouth shut. There is almost no loading time at any point which is a pleasant surprise.
Sound Presentation: bare bones. The background music is well suited & nicely done, you can't change the volume on anything. In spooky area & Amazeon (Amaze-on), it sounds like reg people just made "oohhhhhhhhh" sounds. But it still works.
Avatar - very basic choices, very limited on face shape, skin color & hair, but a lot of choices in colors in shirt & pants/skirt. You can actually save your character in your wii remote to take to a friend's house.
Prizes - if you make par or better on each of the 3 courses of each of the 9 sections, for every section, you get a club in that theme which has a cute animation if you hit par or better for any of the courses in the game. Such a pumpkin club, saber tooth club, knight on a horse club, shaman staff club. When you roll over coins in courses, in each section you can choose prizes such as balls in each of the themes which are nice & cheap, clothes which are always hundreds of points & weird prizes such as cupcakes or a raping gnome in fairyland that doesn't leave the pro shop area. If you play in single player, you can choose at the start of each course if you want to play against the barker (you can't FFW through his putting.) If you win over him, you get a barker coin which seems to only buy diff articles of his clothing.
Menu - Simple, very little option choices except for left/right handed. Pro shop easy to access during the game as well as going back/forth between theme sections (Prehistoric, Fairy, Wild West, Pirate, Spooky, Amazeon, Egyptian, Barn yard, Knight's Castle.) When you click on a course before choosing, it will have the letter & the Barker coin lit or dull depending if you won the barker coin or got par.
Controls - I at first had trouble with the meter since I was used to the swing back holding A & letting go to set the power & swing fwd barely means anything. This time you hold A & do a full swing at the amount you want like a real swing & it DOES measure it very accurately. The meter is simple, it's more of a muscle memory & practicing how hard is too hard/soft for each hole. I was very impressed. Camera can be swung & held at any point with 1 & 2 buttons to see overhead to normal human eye angle.
Courses/Sections: The 3 medium & 3 hard are locked until you hit par on at least 2? 3 courses on an easy section for each subsequent section. Done very well, each section has an Adventure (one which is the longest & has the mini games if you look for the alt. route), Challenge (requires hand coordination skill only) & Trick (sometimes is only about luck such as Barnyard & Knight has one that's like a pinball machine only & you have to be perfect & also FIND the hole). Mini games are short & cute & simple & work well with the theme. If you're successful, they will spit you out at the hole. The courses are simple for adults, but challenging enough for kids. Anyone expecting a head scratcher puzzle will be disappointed. If you're truly stuck, you can always play against the Barker & watch how he wins.
Mini games - Tilting your wii remote in barnyard you catch eggs & coins, in Knights I believe you bounce animals over a moat into a castle. There are 2-3 shoot games style in wild west & spooky, etc., a basic wooden labyrinth in Egyptian, rhythm button in Amazeon, Simon says in Fairyland, flapping a pterodactyl wings in Prehistoric & steering a crab in Pirate's. All games have a very sensitive response to any tilting which is great but take a little practice.
The only issue I have is a little bit with the physics, it feels like the developers definitely skewed it too easy/lenient on easy courses when you have a feeling it shouldn't have gone in & say on hard, I had a ball go in & pop out 4x in a row like there was a spring in the hole. The AI of the barker is rubber banded to your ability overall.

[Friday, November 21, 2008]

Disappointed

I am a senior that loves playing Minigolf with my wife. So when I saw this game I had to have it.
Very disappointed. It can't be played like 18 holes of minigolf.There are 18 holes divided into 9 theme courses.
Three holes in each course. One Adventure hole that has a mimigame in it (not golf). One Challenge hole that has a number of diffrent paths.Like finding the right hole out of 6 that will lead to the right one.One Trick shot that you have to make a hole-in-one. Not skill just luck.
Some of these holes you just have to play over and over again to sink the ball with luck not skill.
All mini courses I have ever played you need alittle luck in but skill to get a good score. This one is all luck so you can't compete.Overall the holes can be fun and flusterating.

[Saturday, November 15, 2008]

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