Title: Jack Nicklaus Golf
Release Date: May 1992 (North America Only)
Developer: Sculptured Software
Publisher: Tradewest
Background
Alright before I do anything different with the blog, I thought I would squeak in the only US developed title for May 1992. It is another generic golf game, but one unique in that it is a port of a PC golf game where the key appeal was that you could design and play on your own courses. The original PC title was known as Jack Nicklaus Unlimited Golf & Course Design. It was a relative success commercially due to the "create your own golf fun" angle, though apparently the instruction manual for the course design program was 156 pages long!
Sculptured Software may not sound familiar, but the company was the developer of the divisive Super Star Wars. This was an action platformer trilogy that was an incredibly loose retelling of the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes 4-6) where everything on every planet wants to kill you. They are incredibly difficult games, but the Star Wars aesthetic is really well realized, and you can tell the games were made by people who were true fans of the series. Eventually, this company was bought up by Acclaim, and made into Acclaim Salt Lake City.
Tradewest is a pretty well known publisher for US and PAL developed titles, finding a special niche with the Battletoads series, and working with Taito to publish the Double Dragon series.
Finally, who is Jack Nicklaus? For the kiddos out there, Jack "the Golden Bear" Nicklaus is considered one of the greatest (arguably the greatest) golfer of all time, who still holds the record for most championship wins (18) in his career. For context, Tiger Woods only has 15. He is known, also, as a course designer, and owns one of the premier golf course design firms. He is still alive too and actively commentates PGA and Masters tours.
Gameplay
Now the game is super ambitious for when it is made: instead of creating a background matte of trees or scenery, it instead loads in sprites of trees and scenery individually. This with the mode seven actually simulates a 3D plane to play golf on. Otherwise it plays like a normal golf game: a power gauge that must be hit at the right time to simulate the correct amount of force, judging what club to use versus the projected distance, and hitting the ball at the correct part of the ball to produce or obviate spin.
If this sounds like a good time, sadly there is a fatal flaw. The game, in producing these "realistic" graphics and simulating the space, really pushes the processing power of the SNES. Every time you hit the ball, the game has to take the time to load in the environment around your player. It take about 5-7 seconds every time. It really kills the pace of play and is consistently terrible. Many critics argued that this made the game unplayable, and I would tend to agree. It would take the patience of a saint to make it through 18 holes of this game.
Music
This game does have some music.
Verdict
This game is at best generic and at worst an unplayable mess. Don't play it and certainly don't buy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment