INTRODUCTION
Golf games have slowly disappeared over the last few months, leaving little or no trace at all. The only golf sims worth a mention are MicroProse Golf and possibly PGA Tour. The others have tried and almost succeeded - Nick Faldo’s came the closest only suffering an awkward control system which became very clumsy at times.
However, Summit Software are a new company hoping to bring gaming entertainment to your Amiga screen. With bigger companies undecided about their future within the Amiga market, smaller companies have taken the opportunity to steal their limelight. Team 17 being a fine example. Summit Software hope to do a Team 17 and dominate the market with quality products. Good luck to ‘em.
To kick off their career, they’ve penned in some releases already, namely Tracksuit Manager, Rage and Rugby Boss. Let’s hope these can rank alongside some of the past Amiga greats. We’ll see.
SOUND
Sound for golf games is fairly non-existent – featuring merely the odd swoosh of the club and a bird or two tweeting along in the background. All these effects have been included which makes the game an absolute pleasure to play. The actual sampled tweets of the birds are the best I’ve heard on any game of this genre, being MicroProse Golf hands down – as far as tweets go.
70%GRAPHICS
Graphically, International Golf is fairly good. The action is viewed top-down, with well-drawn trees accompanies by the obvious golfy scenery. The scrolling is nice and smooth too, leaving me with no particular gripes at all. But – there’s always one – the overall look and feel gives a very PD impression, if you know what I mean. The reason behind this is because the actual developers are a PD team called Saddletramps PD. They will obviously need time to make the move from PD up to full price, but I’m afraid it shows up a little too much for me.
The graphics aren’t as polished as say, Sensible Golf, and the whole feel gives an impression of being programmed in Amos. Most newcomers to the market encounter these problems and usually move onto another programming language to get the best results from their particular genre of game. However, as Summit Software have obviously tried very hard I shouldn’t really knock them.
If golf is your game and you like a good 18 holes of planning what clubs to use, power and accuracy all by yourself, without any help from the computer, then graphics don’t particularly come into it. Unless, of course, you like to take in the scenery on your way to the next hole.
On the box the game boasts superb colour graphics featuring a full rotoscoped golfer. Yes, maybe but it still looks like public domain.
68%OPINION52%
Overall then, a nicely presented game which may not have the depth of MicroProse or PGA, but the actual gameplay is very different by managing to sustain an arcade feel.
After each shot you have to alter your positioning, club, power and height of the shot all by yourself, without any help from the computer whatsoever, whereas other golf sims give you a little help by lining you up with the hole and selecting a suitable club.
One aspect of the game which became frustrating is that it fails to give you the yardage for the clubs. Prior knowledge of golf is absolutely essential, which unfortunately I do no possess. Consequently, I was frequently over hitting the ball.
There are two courses included in the game and an option to install new ones when they are released. There’s also a tournament option and a two-player game. It’s certainly not short of ideas.
Incidentally, a demo of International Golf is being release as public domain by Saddletramps PD. This, perhaps, is a better idea than hurrying the process and releasing the game at full price. Summit Software should have waited for a response on the demo and then acted accordingly.
As it stands, it’s a good first attempt at full price software, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked. If you’re into the finer side of golf it could be a worthwhile buy.