M2G Review: Planet MiniGolf

Minigolf has always been a great past time for anyone who just couldn’t play real golf or as a great first date for years, but you have never played mini golf like this. Zen Studios have created a mini golf simulator that gives you some great play over its 140 odd premade courses, but that really isn’t the key to this game. The key is actually the same must play reason behind games like LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers. Yes, that’s right we have a golfing sim with some classic build, create and share components included. You start the game by creating your own world avatar, unfortunately this is where the ‘build’ idea of the ‘build, create and share’ that is the basis of this game falls down a bit as you have five basic bodies to use and you can customize them with clothes (more can be unlocked as you progress though the game) but that is it. It is nowhere near the scale of what you can do in LittleBigPlanet or ModNation, which is a shame. After that you can choose you characters nationality via a pretty large selection of flags, which does actually add a nice touch to the game. One of  the clever parts of the game is you gain keys as you play through the game which is coded in different levels, gold, silver and bronze, each item is also coded in different levels to match, so you spend keys to unlock the new items, giving you something to aim for throughout the game. Possibly the most interesting part of Zen Studios creation is how life-like it is, while the worlds are something you could only find in a video game, or at least in terms of imagination, they are believable courses. You have something like 144 premade courses in the main game that are split up into sections of difficulty. Going from Warm-Up courses to Wacky, the warm –up courses are the only ones that are available each time you enter a destination but each difficulty opens up in sequence as you complete the previous one. The courses are then divided up into four locations or destinations for you to play though. You have: Buccaneer’s Hideout, which is (as the title implies) a pirate based course set in Australia; Soho, which is set in the streets of London; Polar Station’s holes are set in the snow of Greenland (which seems to have had some recent UFO activity as there is a ship crashed near the course, perhaps something to do with the Iceland volcano?) Finally there is Ancient Valley, set in Mexico with a Mayan theme to the holes, all of these courses are playable from the start of the game, so no need to play it in sequence to unlock more places to visit. Continuing the theme of the places that house them, the holes are given different obstacles based around the theme, so for example, in Buccaneer’s Hideout you have crabs wandering around on the green to prevent you getting that ‘Hole in One’ or in Soho you have the London Eye to try and knock your ball around. There is some obvious conclusions that can be drawn regarding the repetitiveness of the obstacles (i.e. Soho and Buccaneer’s Hideout share wheel ideas and the crabs and spiders found on the beach and jungle serve the same function)  but that is not the case as there is enough of a change in design to save you from that feeling. The destinations are all given four nine hole courses, one for each difficulty and also a  custom one (more on that later). To make the game quicker you don’t watch the AI play their holes, which is actually a god send after many a time spent watching the AI play their round on other golfing sims. But there is a problem with this in that there are times when you wonder how the computer beat a hole in two shots and it took you six, but that can be solved with a nice online feature that allows you to replay other player’s time with a hole to see how they did it (a bit like Mirror’s Edge’s ghosts in Time Trail, but without you chasing after them). The good thing is that all the courses can be beaten with a bit of time and practice, for most of them you can see how to best it very easily but the problem is trying to actually do it. There is times that the game’s logic and quite believable physics system seems to take leave of its senses and just make it impossible to putt the ball, but that is in very rare cases. But like the other games in this genre the place where Planet MiniGolf really shines is the multiplayer. You have various options when online, you can upload your replays to YouTube (Just Cause 2 style) for others to view and of course, play ranked or unranked matches one on one or in doubles or teams. Something that this game holds over others is that you don’t need to download other players’ custom courses to be able to play them, you can just jump into them and the game will download as you play, which is a nice touch that makes the feel of the game more streamlined but also teaches LittleBigPlanet something new. All of the custom courses can be found pretty easily with helpful filters, except your own creations which require a little digging to find. Designing that masterpiece is pretty straightforward, you can be play testing your design in something like 15 or 20 minutes after starting on the build, depending on your ambition. The game is very friendly to operate, a simple menu based system allows for your creations to come to life, but there is a grid that you need to stick to and a limited number of objects that you can place on the field, which is a little restrictive but nothing too damaging. To start you need to choose one of the four places featured in the game and then you can start building. There are loads of shapes and pieces to play around with and each course can be spruced up with dynamic or animated obstacles to challenge the player. It should be noted that you do have to be able to complete the game in less than 15 shots for it to pass and be viable to be uploaded. Planet MiniGolf has all the power of a full-blooded game but at a faction of the price. There is loads of fun to be had within the game, there are parts of it that are frustrating but the pure fun of playing the game seems to overwhelm that feeling quite quickly. The basic package is well done and offers something for everyone, but this game will really start to talk when users get online and design their own courses for it.

Rating: 8/10

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