It's true that I'm fussy when it comes to golf games - but hopefully rightly so, in the context of filtering through the wannabes in search of the ultimate pinnacle of playability. Let's Golf! is a cross-platform franchise, characterised by impeccable physics and playability, though with cartoon-like (think Nintendo Wii) characters and scenery rather than photo-realism.
This Java port for S60 5th Edition brings over much, though not all, of the functionality of the iPhone version. With most of the target handsets having less processor power than the iPhone, with a lack of graphics acceleration and with the extra overheads of running under Java, the omissions aren't really surprising. Loading and cut-screens are a little slow to work through, the scenery's all flat and the pseudo-3D animations (such as they are) are very limited and somewhat jerky. All of that notwithstanding, I did enjoy my rounds with Let's Golf! It's not all bad news.
As you'd expect, you can play in instant or tournament modes, with the latter pitting you against a number of other computer-simulated players (you never see them on the course, nor any spectators). Each hole is preceded with a (rather small) overview, showing approximate distances, and it's then onto the main interface. A hole thumbnail, wind direction and speed and distance to the flag are all clearly shown, along with an animated aiming line - tap to the right or left of this to adjust your shot's aim.
What's missing is a way of telling how far, at full power, each club can send your ball. This is a staple of most golf games and Let's Golf! gets round the omission by showing, when you tap the action 'spot' the calculated 'optimum' power needed on the swing gauge. This system works well and takes away some of the mental maths needed, but the purist in me kind of misses the old system.
In effect, Let's Golf! uses a traditional 'three taps' swing system. Tap once to start the power 'curve' animating, tap again when it reaches the shot power you require and then tap again when it gets back down to the timing line. It's a classic control system and it's implemented very well here. With a big caveat.
You see, using Java for the game does impose a few performance limitations. Yes, fans will decry this and say that you can build fabulous apps and games using Java and indeed there are some splendid examples, of which Let's Golf! is arguably one. However, there IS a performance overhead that's undeniable. And in this case it affects playability. When controlling the timing of a golf game's power bar, there has to be instant response to the player's taps (or button presses, traditionally) As it is, in Let's Golf! implemented in Java for Symbian, you tap at the right point to get (say) 80% power and by the time the Java runtime has processed your tap and channelled it through to the game engine, the power bar has moved on and you end up shooting with (say) 95% power. The same applies to the timing bar at the bottom. You tap at the exact point of perfect impact and by the time the game engine's caught up, you're a good way off perfect and your shot skews off.
To an extent, you get used to this delay and can compensate, by tapping slightly before you need to, every single time, but that's a bit of a kludge, to say the least. These timing bar delays are the single biggest frustration in Let's Golf!, in this implementation.
Once a shot is underway, tapping on the action spot again gives access to ball spin options and you can apply back or topspin, for example, to correct any errors (see above) in the power bar control, or to do something fancy, like spin back to a hole from the centre of a green.
On the green, the (again) traditional 2D grid is superimposed, with (PGA) Tiger Woods-like blue and red markings to indicate uphill or downhill slopes, a system that works well. Once your putt is underway, a close-up animation of the ball approaching the hole is popped up (not captured in my screenshots), showing what happens in detail, and this works very well.
Finally, once you get within a foot or so of the hole, an 'auto-putt' system kicks in and the game finishes the hole off for you.
There's clearly little processor power to spare for much of the above, though Let's Golf! does throw in some fripperies. The wind arrow animates, trees sometimes wave their branches, wind blows the odd blade of grass across your view, a hot air balloon in the distance occasionally bobs up and down, and so on. Again, not at all realistic, but the developers have done what they could within the constraints of using Java.
Additional 'modern' game extensions include winning virtual money to 'upgrade' your equipment - and presumably improve your performance, but these are just window dressing as far as I can see. Still, these, along with winning badges and trophies, add a little extra flavour to the basic game and might be fun for some players to collect.
Once you get used to the idiosyncrasies of the power bar timing, Let's Golf! is fun to play and I was happy to have bought it in the Ovi Store - it has already whiled away a few hours of downtime while on my recent vacation. I was very pleased to see a 'save game' facility, so that you can pick up a round of golf from where you left off, perhaps several phone power-ons ago.
Let's Golf! is not the best golf game ever to hit Symbian - that (arguably) belongs to either Tiger Woods PGA or Pro Series Golf on the now defunct N-Gage games 'platform' - I do wish the developers of these would tweak their titles and make them available again in the Ovi Store.
But Let's Golf! is the best Symbian game I've ever seen that has been written in Java and shows what's (almost) possible. And, despite the timing glitch, it's definitely worth a few pounds or Euros of any golf game aficionado's money - the physics engine that underlies all the swinging, spinning and rolling is first class.
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian and Ovi Gaming, 23 August 2010
