I have a theory. There are three sorts of golf game in the world. Firstly, those that are complete and utter rubbish. We're talking appallingly slow and jerky animations, crude graphics and unrealistic physics. Secondly, there are super slick, high budget titles like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, released for the N-Gage system but not yet (sadly) available to buy under the Ovi Store. Just about a must-buy - I know, I've bought it twice now and have lost it again each time due to stupid, stupid N-Gage device locking and non-existent customer support. These top drawer games are all-enveloping, immersive, and should really be treated as simulations, they get you so close to the real thing.
Thirdly, in the middle, there are games which, like Par 72 Golf II here, are just that, games. There's no pretense at super realism and you're always aware that you're competing against elements in a computer game. Rather than replicate a real world course (as Tiger Woods did), the courses here are well designed but very obviously computer models, with geometrically precise gradients, dips and peaks. It's very 3D, as you can see from the screenshots and, thankfully, the physics model is accurate too - hit your ball onto an on-screen slope and it will roll down, just as it would in real life.
Par 72 Golf II is a Java game, meaning that I ought to mention that users will need to go into Settings>Application mgr>Installed apps>Par 72 Golf II>Suite settings and disable the on-screen d-pad and function keys. 99% of users won't know how to do this, of course, and will be limited to playing in a small window at the top of the screen - a missed opportunity for the developer. Other Java games seem able to automatically go full-screen, so I fail to see why this one can't.
The Java nature doesn't hold the game back much after that, aside from the sluggish redraws when you try and change your viewpoint - thankfully, small changes in aim can be accomplished by nudging the aiming line by tapping on the bottom-of-screen arrow icons. Other small icons around the outside of the display give you access to club selection, an overhead view and the main game menu.
Having gauged where you want to hit the ball (using distance, lie and wind clues), swinging your club is done by tapping the ball icon, bottom-right - simply stop the vertical bar at the appropriate (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) point. There are rudimentary sound effects for ball contact that don't really convince, but at least there's sound - again, we're not talking about birds chirping and crowd chatter here, much less TV commentators - this is bare bones golf.
The graphics throughout are pretty enough, with bitmapped textures in most places - I've seen far worse golf games, but as shown in these screenshots, when up close, some of the surfaces can look rather ugly.
Putting is disappointing - there's little help from the striped green patterning, but it doesn't really matter because the ball will drop if it even goes near the hole - there's simply no finesse here.
There's also no competition, aside from the fun of playing and trying to beat your previous best score - so there's no sense of trying to beat other virtual players. Having three 18 hole courses on offer is nice though, at least Par 72 Golf II will retain its pick up and play value for a decent length of time.
Good value for only £4 in the Ovi Store, there's enough here to while away several queues or boring trips. But just don't expect console quality graphics or gameplay.
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 10 Feb 2010
