Of all the sports that I have played in video game form, the one I have played the most is golf. One of the few PC games I have really gotten into was a golf game. When I was in college, my friends and I talked about how good, or bad, in my case GOOD, we were at Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. The only sports video game that I pick up on a yearly basis is Tiger Woods PGA Tour. The devotion that many people have toward football, soccer, and even hockey video games, I have toward golf video games.
The reason Tiger Woods PGA Tour has hooked me so deep is the gameplay. I'm one of those gamers who thinks gameplay is THE critical element to a video game. Not graphics, not sound, not story, not online connectivity, not anything else, gameplay. If a video game does not have good gameplay, in my opinion, the game sucks, and I think Tiger Woods PGA Tour has the best gameplay experience in sports video games. The amount of control that the player has over every single shot that is taken throughout a round of golf is astounding to me. Every big and little detail of the shot can be controlled by the player. From big changes that address how the player can shape their shot to address trees and other obstructions, to little changes to the ball's trajectory, spin, and the angle the ball falls at as it approaches the playing surface.
The difference between the amount of control that the player has over the golf ball in Tiger Woods PGA Tour is especially apparent when compared to the amount of control the player has in other golf video games. Let's take, for example, Golf for the NES. I remember playing this game as a small child, and no matter how much time and effort I sunk into this game, I still sucked at it. I was not alone is this. The adults I was around who also played this video game also sucked at it. Even my dad, who actually plays actual golf in the real world, sucked at this game.
The problem with Golf for the NES is gameplay, and how much control the player has over where the golf balls ends up. In short, the player has little to no control as to where the golf ball will actually end up. The combination of power bars, limited ability to know where exactly you are sending the ball, and a seemingly randomness to how things like wind, lie, and elevation changes will affect how the ball travels, only add to the lack of control the player has over the golf ball. While frustration is the name of the game for many people who play actual golf in the real world, frustration is the only thing that most people who play Golf for the NES experience. This apparent lacking in the gameplay experience of the game is why I much prefer the gameplay that is presented in Tiger Woods PGA Tour to the gameplay that is presented in Golf for the NES.
The gameplay that is presented in the golf mini-game in Grand Theft Auto V more closely resembles Golf for the NES than Tiger Woods PGA Tour. The gameplay in this golf mini-game is dependent on power bars, which is something that, in my opinion, is something that really should be done away with. Also, the wind appears to have a sometimes minimal and sometimes substantial part of how the flight of the golf ball will be altered during flight. Factor in the seemingly randomness that comes with how lie affects how the ball travels, and what is presented here is a exercise in frustration. While the player is able to see where the golf ball might drop before they take a shot, the spot that is shown is where the ball will initially drop, not where the golf ball might actually end up after it stops rolling.
While admittedly you can't expect the best golf experience out of a mini-game in a world where the point is to rob, shoot, kill, rob, shoot, and kill people, I expected better than this. While I may have been spoiled after the great experience that was Rockstar Games Table Tennis, the disappointment I feel about the golf experience in Grand Theft Auto V does not give me a good feeling about the other mini-games in this games. I guess I'll have to go back to killing random people because they are there and banging semi-attractive strippers because I somehow filled up their satisfaction bars.
Grand Theft Auto V: Golf Mini-Game: C-
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