Sensible Golf

The Good
Getting rid of the complicated aspects of golf gave it potential to appeal to a wide audience. The control system was easy to grasp and allowed for varied shots, as well as being possible to make mistakes and have to correct them.

Having such a variety of bizarre and unrealistic hole designs was interesting. The courses were well-chosen and had a suitably variety in play style.

The Bad
There wasn't really enough to do. Missing standard features isn't automatically a big deal - the problem is that nothing replaced them. There was all sorts of potential for sequential challenges on particular holes, or a course designer, or a ranking system, but none of it was implemented.

The sound was poor, lacking either realism or character.

Too many holes had silly design faults. In particular, it was often down to luck as to whether you landed on a 10-yard section of fairway, or the bunker next to it, or the surrounding lake. If you ended up in the bunker (through little or no fault of your own) you would almost certainly lose further shots trying to get onto the fairway and thus get a chance to clear the lake.

On occasion the game would effectively get stuck, as you got trapped behind a tree and couldn't play over it, around it or back behind it. As you couldn't quit the game or take a 12, the only option was to reset. Grrrrr.

The Bottom Line
An arcade game based around golf, with many similarities to Sensible Soccer, but not quite in the same class. Had all the hallmarks of a rush job, and of an Amiga 500 game converted in an era when 486s were starting to take over - making it look and feel old-fashioned, without the gameplay being especially rounded.

The Good
Getting rid of the complicated aspects of golf gave it potential to appeal to a wide audience. The control system was easy to grasp and allowed for varied shots, as well as being possible to make mistakes and have to correct them.

Having such a variety of bizarre and unrealistic hole designs was interesting. The courses were well-chosen and had a suitably variety in play style.

The Bad
There wasn't really enough to do. Missing standard features isn't necessarily a big deal - the problem is that nothing replaced them. There was all sorts of potential for sequential challenges on particular holes, or a course designer, or a ranking system, but none of it was implemented.

The sound was poor, lacking either realism or character.

Too many holes had silly design faults. In particular, it was often down to luck as to whether you landed on a 10-yard section of fairway, or the bunker next to it, or the surrounding lake. If you ended up in the bunker (through little or no fault of your own) you would almost certainly lose further shots trying to get onto the fairway and thus get a chance to clear the lake.

On occasion the game would effectively get stuck, as you got trapped behind a tree and couldn't play over it, around it or back behind it. As you couldn't quit the game or take a 12, the only option was to reset. Grrrrr.

The Bottom Line
An arcade game based around golf, with many similarities to Sensible Soccer, but not quite in the same class. Had all the hallmarks of a rush job, and of an Amiga 500 game converted in an era when 486s were starting to take over - making it look and feel old-fashioned, without the gameplay being especially rounded.