Hot Shots Golf Demo Impressions

March 16th, 2007, 22:42 Posted By: wraggster

Sony's much anticipated Hot Shots Golf 5 demo hit the Japanese PlayStation Store on time Thursday morning in Japan. Sony actually moved the release date of the demo up by a week in order to avoid potential server conflicts with the impending European launch. With the console still a week away in Europe, and with most of Japan at work or school, I was able to get through the 231 megabyte download with little hassle.

231 megabytes is on the lower end of the next generation game demo file size range. There really isn't too much to this particular demo. As promised by Sony, players have access to two characters and a total of nine holes. You're free to select between the two characters, and chose one of two costumes. Each game is played over three of the nine holes, chosen at random.

The big news as far as gameplay is concerned is the inclusion of a new type of swing control. The Hot Shots series traditionally uses a metering system for swinging. You tap circle to start a power meter moving from right to left. When the meter reaches the power level that you want, you tap circle again to send it moving back to the starting position. To get a good shot, you have to tap circle again, timing the press to when the meter hits the starting point.

You're free to select from the traditional swing method in the demo, but to that, Sony has added the option, selectable prior to heading out to the green, for the "Honkaku shot," Japanese for "true shot." When using this shooting style, the power meter disappears. Pressing circle makes your character begin his swing. When the character reaches back far enough, an indication of the power of the swing, you press circle again. Finally, you have to time a third press of the circle button to the point just before the club hits the ball.

In practice the two systems appear to be equivalent, with the new style of swinging merely lacking the abstraction of a power meter. It took me a few tries to get used to the new system, particularly coming to grips with the range of the character's swing. But I find myself using the new swing style more than the old style now, as it does feel a bit more like you're actually swinging a golf club.

Outside of the new swing style, the Hot Shots Golf 5 demo feels like the PS2 version of the series but with next generation graphics. I didn't notice any big changes to gameplay or presentation. The game takes you from hole to hole in similar fashion to previous installments. Some holes have lots of spectators, but this seems to be just for show.

The visual improvements over the PS2 and PSP installments are significant, but the game still needs a bit of work in this area. You've probably seen the high resolution pics of the post Tokyo Game Show build by now (if not, check out Impress Watch). In stills, Hot Shots looks pretty slick. In motion, the visuals are plagued by some bad shimmering and a framerate that feels a bit too choppy during the fast camera pans that follow shots. The game, incidentally, supports up to 720p.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan is already hyping up the game's July Japanese release through television ads. The folks at ClapHanz still have a few months to polish up the visuals and add characters, items and gameplay modes to make this a worthy next generation installment of everyone's favorite golf series.

via ign

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