{"id":2872,"date":"2013-06-23T15:07:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T21:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=2872"},"modified":"2015-09-30T23:23:33","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T05:23:33","slug":"golfyssey-18-super-nintendo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=2872","title":{"rendered":"Golfyssey 18 \u2014 Super Nintendo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Super Nintendo<\/a> sure did arrive late to the 16-bit party, didn’t it?\u00a0 As the last of the main players to be released, it might seem a bit underpowered.\u00a0 But Nintendo found many ways to make it succeed, and scores upon scores of games released for the system are considered to be classics.\u00a0 Many game studios pushed their art to produce sights and sounds that people thought couldn’t be done on such a low-powered system.\u00a0 In addition to this, Nintendo built the system with plans to allow special coprocessor chips<\/a> built into certain game cartridges<\/a> to interface with the console’s hardware.\u00a0 This upped the specs of the machine while the game was being played and allowed the Super Nintendo to display far more sophisticated graphics than it would be able to on its own.<\/p>\n

This overall strategy paid off, and the Super Nintendo is considered to have been a success in the market place.\u00a0 This is despite the famous “console wars” of that era having no clear winner.<\/p>\n

The golf games for the system were what you would expect from hardware like this.\u00a0 I’ve mentioned that the version of “Jack Nicklaus Golf” for this system is the best to date, so if you like that game, definitely pick it up for the Super Nintendo.<\/p>\n

“Pebble Beach Golf Links” and some of the EA golf games that I reviewed for the Sega Genesis are also available for this console, so I won’t review them.<\/p>\n

“Hole in One Golf”, 1991<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

This one isn’t too impressive.\u00a0 If you like constant music throughout, you might just like it.\u00a0 This is one of those<\/em> games.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Might as well get this out of the way right now.\u00a0 Mode 7<\/a>.\u00a0 Some games incorporated the “scaling and rotation” effects into their games tastefully, and some did not.\u00a0 This game falls under the latter category.\u00a0 The idea of its use in this game is to help in a course flyby to show you the hole your about to play.\u00a0 But it’s executed poorly and in a way that screams “LOOK WHAT THE SUPER NINTENDO CAN DO!”<\/p>\n

Thankfully, you can skip this with the press of a button.\u00a0 The game setup includes options for styles of gameplay, entering your name (which is handled rather clumsily for some reason) and choosing your set of clubs.\u00a0 The music will not stop.\u00a0 There is no way to turn it off.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

When you start playing, your course view looks like this.\u00a0 The blue-outlined menu near the bottom right of the screen shows you a menu of functions, which you can navigate with the direction pad.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the green,<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the hole you can view, with some options of its own.\u00a0 It’s interesting, but it seems like overkill to me.\u00a0 Will this fucking music never cease?<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Here you can overlay a grid to help you gauge the terrain.<\/p>\n

Pressing the Start button will pause the game and show you the score card.\u00a0 It will not however stop the music.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

When you’re ready to play, press the A<\/strong> or B<\/strong> button when the arrow in your menu is on SHOT.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Use the L<\/strong> and R<\/strong> shoulder buttons to aim.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Pressing A<\/strong> or B<\/strong> will show you your ball lie…<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Pressing A<\/strong> or B<\/strong> again will allow you to select your club.\u00a0 Use up and down on the direction pad to switch clubs.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

Another press of the A<\/strong> or B<\/strong> button will allow you to change your stance.\u00a0 Left and right on the direction pad will change it.\u00a0 Nothing will change my stance on this annoying music.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

To bring up the power meter, press A<\/strong> or B<\/strong> again.\u00a0 This one moves fast and it’s unforgiving.\u00a0 It is 3-button style, and if you hit the buttons too far out of the marked zones, you will not make a shot and you will be penalized one stroke.\u00a0 Hitting out of bounds is also a one-stroke penalty and a re-hit.<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

The putting green offers no altered view or zoom-in, and the power meter works exactly the same way.\u00a0 It does look different, and it is much shorter, so putts are rather difficult to make.<\/p>\n

You can probably tell that I didn’t like this game.\u00a0 I’m getting the impression by playing some of these games from the 90s that some game developers were being told “We need a golf game for console such-and-such by this specific date… make it happen!”<\/p>\n

On the plus side, the music has finally stopped because I shut down the emulator, and I’m now enjoying a delicious cup of tea.<\/p>\n

“Irem Skins Game”, 1992<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

That font looks kind of like the old standard NES font.\u00a0 I hope this isn’t a sign of poor quality to come.<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, the 8-bit look of the font on a 16-bit system is an odd choice, but… OH MY GOD YOU CAN PLAY AS FREDDIE MERCURY!!!<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

FUCK YES!<\/p>\n

\"Freddie+Mercury+Golf\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, the graphics do get better.\u00a0 Once you get started, they look pretty standard for a Super Nintendo game of this era.<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

But this game too is marred by constant shitty poppy happy sappy pappy music that can’t be turned off.<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

The interface is different from the other games that I’ve reviewed here, but the basics are there.\u00a0 The red highlight is on the “CLUB” option in that screenshot right now, and pressing the L<\/strong> and R<\/strong> shoulder buttons will navigate left and right.\u00a0 The B<\/strong> button will also move the highlighted selection to the right.<\/p>\n

When you have an item highlighted, the direction pad will change the options for it.\u00a0 On “CLUB”, use the direction pad to change which club you’re using.\u00a0 You will see the power meter (on the left side of the screen with the triangular pointer next to it) get bigger when you select a lighter club.<\/p>\n

The “DIRECTION” menu item will allow you to aim with the direction pad.\u00a0 You will see the course view shift as you change it.<\/p>\n

“STANCE” will change the way your feet stand in front of the ball, and you will see this animated slightly by the golfer.\u00a0 The arrow above the menu item will show you which way the ball will fly.<\/p>\n

The “POWER” Menu item must be set before you swing.\u00a0 If you are making a long shot, set it higher.\u00a0 Otherwise, set it lower.<\/p>\n

When you have set up your shot, press A<\/strong>.\u00a0 You only get one button press, and you need to time it when the indicator to the left of the power meter is pointing at the line in the middle.<\/p>\n

You will see your golfer swing, and you will see your ball fly through the air.<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see, the graphics did improve.\u00a0 Everything is easy to see at a glance.\u00a0 When you make it on to the putting green, your view changes to look like this:<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

You can only choose the direction and power of your shot now.<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

We are the champions…<\/p>\n

\"Irem<\/a><\/p>\n

… my friends…<\/p>\n

Pretty good game.\u00a0 It has a different control system from most, and it looks pretty good, even though it doesn’t fully take advantage of what the Super Nintendo could do.\u00a0 The only thing that kills this game for me is the music.\u00a0 I will probably give it a replay or two, but the speakers will definitely be off.<\/p>\n

“Wicked 18”, 1993<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

A high-quality game.\u00a0 This one comes from the same people who made “Pebble Beach Golf Links”, and the controls are very similar to that game.\u00a0 See my review of that game for details about the control system.<\/p>\n

The premise of this game is pure fantasy.\u00a0 Basically, it’s a chance for the game’s designers to make some very challenging holes collected on a golf course that could not physically exist.\u00a0 You can see a manifestation of this in the very first hole.\u00a0 Mountains come out of the sky\u00a0\u00c1\u00a0 la Roger Dean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

So the graphics are very good.\u00a0 And the game play is great.\u00a0 There is music constantly playing, but it can be turned off!<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

There is quite a lot of ccustomizability in this game.\u00a0 If you press Select, the controlls window will rotate its position along the four corners of the screen.\u00a0 If you press start, the background of that window will toggle between transparent and grey background.\u00a0 You can alter the camera view too.\u00a0 This game is fully 3D.<\/p>\n

Pressing Y<\/strong> will bring you to the options window.\u00a0 The X<\/strong> button will show you the putting green:<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

A<\/strong> cancels back to the last menu item, and B<\/strong> is the action button.\u00a0 Pressing B<\/strong> will first bring up your club selection window:<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

Left and right on the direction pad will select a different club.\u00a0 Be sure to choose the appropriate club for the distance to the hole, which is shown near the bottom left.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

Another press of B<\/strong> and you can choose your stance.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

Pressing the B<\/strong> button again will bring up your power meter.\u00a0 Read my “Pebble Beach Golf Links” for Sega Genesis review to see how this works.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

The ball and course will be animated as your shot is made.\u00a0 This can be a bit slow as the graphics are rendered.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

When you have made it onto the putting green, you will automatically get a terrain grid, a graph and a summary displayed:<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

Putts are handled the same way as regular shots, just be careful not to over-swing.<\/p>\n

I had a lot of fun when I played “Pebble Beach Golf Links”, and I was quite impressed by the quality of that game and the realism the developers tried to give to the experience.\u00a0 This game adds to all of that tremendously, even though the whole point of the course is to have totally fantastic holes with unreal elements and settings.\u00a0 Here is a small foretaste of the next hole.<\/p>\n

\"Wicked<\/a><\/p>\n

I haven’t played through all 18 holes yet, but this first round I played was so enjoyable that I can’t wait to do so.\u00a0 I bet that all of the holes have a different theme to them.\u00a0 Even if they don’t this game is well worth playing.\u00a0 If you’d like to try it out yourself via emulation, check out the ZNES emulator<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Super Nintendo sure did arrive late to the 16-bit party, didn’t it?\u00a0 As the last of the main players to be released, it might seem a bit underpowered.\u00a0 But Nintendo found many ways to make it succeed, and scores upon scores of games released for the system are considered to be classics.\u00a0 Many game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,474,38],"tags":[476,487,499],"class_list":["post-2872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-video-game-consoles","category-video-games","tag-golf","tag-nintendo","tag-super-nintendo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7985,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions\/7985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}