This is how I would improve computer golf. The players would be Tony Curtis and Terry-Thomas. Tony Curtis would have to play fairly, but would be really good at the game, and Terry-Thomas would be terrible, but have an armoury of dirty tricks.
For example, his club would be electrically-powered, with the gizmo on the head that shot a hidden golf ball out at supersonic speed when he swung at the decoy ball on the tee. Or Eric Sykes would be waiting in the rough, and when Terry-Thomas made a bad shot, Eric Sykes would be waiting the rough, and when Terry-Thomas made a bad shot, Eric Sykes would burl another ball out on to the green.
Or even Terry-Thomas would have some sort of air gun concealed in his club, and when Tony Curtis was taking his shot Terry-Thomas would see him through a target, and would have to try to hit him with a tranquiliser dart to make him miss. It would be great.
In the meantime, here's PGA European Tour. It doesn't have Terry-Thomas in it, or even Tony Curtis or Eric Sykes. IT does have some 'real' players dispensing 'useful' 'advice' like,"'Don't ignore the bunkers," and "Aim for the green." It also has polite applause emanating from nowhere at all when you make a good shot, and deliberately unexcitable players, and it's the best golf game ever in the history of all things.
At least, that's what I've been told to say. Golf, it seems, of the computer kind at least, is extremely popular in these parts. Never having played a game before, and therefore obviously being very stupid, I was surrounded by golf fans throughout the reviewing experience. Which went exactly like this.
CLUB
Golf Fan 1 (Steve The Prod Ed): Look at that. It's got real players in it. You can play against real people.
Golf Fan 2 (Jonathan The Ed): That's good. Set upa tournament. We four against the best four computer players. In a Skins game. That's for money and everything.
Golf Fan 3 (Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door)): All right.
Me: I don't know what's going on.
Steve The Prod Ed: Let's play on the Wentworth course. No, the Arden one. No, the Crans-surSierre. No, Le Golf National. No, the Valdemarr.
Jonathan The Ed: I shall make an executive decision. Crans-sur Sierre.
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): All right.
Steve The Prod Ed: Oh dear. A choice of clubs. I hate having to choose clubs. It's so boring.
Jonathan The Ed: No, apparently the computer chooses the best club for each shot. You can override the decision if you want, but there's really no need..
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): Good.
Jonathan The Ed: Ah, now this is one of those 'press the mouse button to start the shot power up, then press the mouse button to determine the power of the shot, then press the mouse button to stop the ball as near to the line as possible to keep the shot on target' things, isn't it?
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): Yes.
Jonathan The Ed: And you can move the crosshair you're aiming at, and see a topographical map of the green, and switch to one of those lovely but mostly useless aerial shots of the course which zoom in and out. Fortunately, there's a sensible plan view that gives all the necessary information.
Steve The Prod Ed: This is all a bit weak, isn't it? The format for this type of review's so hackneyed you could pop a Cockney cabbie in it. I mean, come on, all this supposedly clever banter that's clearly made up by one person because everyone talks in exactly the same way, and in the middle of it huge clunky monologues about the game itself. Which would obviously do the job just as well presented as a paragraph in a straightforward review. It's ridiculous.
Jonathan The Ed: No, come on, play up and play the game. Look, it's his comedy line and everything.
Me: I don't know what's going on.
Jonathan The Ed: There you are.
Terry-Thomas would see him through a target
BATTER
Steve The Prod Ed: Bad luck. You failed to take account of the wind strength and direction. You see, by clicking here you can alter the draw and fade.
Jonathan The Ed: That's sort of like the spin on a ball in, say, pool or snooker, isn't it, Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door)?
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): Yes.
Steve The Prod Ed: Well, I must say this is all very pleasant. The game helpfully selects the best club, lines you up with the hole and gives you all the necessary information in a convenient box. The sound's attractively minimal - the 'swop' of hitting the ball, a few noises when you land in a bunker or go through the leaves of a tree - and it looks, well, functional. Pleasantly functional, though.
Jonathan The Ed: Yes. Relaxing. Just the one.
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door)): Yes.
Me: This is really boring.
Steve The Prod Ed: No it isn't. It's relaxing. It's the sort of game you play to unwind. Despite the competition between players in trying to sink the ball in the lowest number of shots, there's no animosity on the loser's side.
Jonathan The Ed: It's a courtesy game.
(Pause.)
Jonathan The Ed: Well, go on.
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): What?
Jonathan The Ed: Do that comedy bit where you say a really long, paradoxically complicated piece, and then we can finish with the song, and he can write the concluding part normally.
Steve The Prod Ed's Friend Steve (From Next Door): No.
Steve The Prod Ed: We've missed our cue now.
HIT WITH A SHOVEL
It is very relaxing, is PGA European Tour. And friendly. And, oddly, compulsive. You do tend to find yourself following the flight of the ball and willing to stay on course or go a bit to the left or whatever. And the clever addition of a reverse angle view of the ball landing adds no end to the suspense.
But it's not exactly what you'd call an exciting game. (The nearest you get to that is the enjoyable tense shoot-out, where you're eliminated if you lose a hole.) Mostly it's just quiet, consistent fun - hunkering over the mouse as you try to compensate for the wind by lathering spin on the ball, or attempting that £12.000 putt by calculating the percentage of 21 feet you need to reach the hole.
Even when things get difficult (courses which are mostly water, for example, or littered with bunkers and trees filing the direct shot) and you slap the ball into the undergrowth, the irrepressibly helpful positioning saves the day.
Beyond whacking it in a straight line as hard as possible and then trusting the club and position you've been given, you're meant to 'read' the course and adapt your tactics accordingly (making a short shot, say, in order to get on a straight line with the hole, and then closely examining the green to judge the best approach). This is the agonisingly skillful realistically golfish bit, and consequently the part I found very boring. (Fortunate I could turn it all off then and just concentrate on thumping the ball around).
There's no doubt PGA European Tour is the best golf game you can get, and even for the casual player it's a fair bit of fun. In multi-player mode it logic-defyingly tends to suck up time in a near-Dynablaster fashion and the spectacle of people getting hurrahingly excited about winning pretend money is something to behold.
Yes, I like it. Nowhere near as much as clever golf fans, but in a more personal, greatly surprised sort of way. Surprise made all the greater as it's from the people who wrote Last Action Hero (We'd have got away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky kids. Etc. - The Dome.)