In 1998 Camelot released Hot Shots Golf to little fanfare. Eventually, after earning the praise of game reviewers and strong word of mouth, it became a top seller. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so the developers at Camelot should feel very flattered. Mario Golf, Tee-Off Golf, and now Golf Paradise have taken the Hot Shots style and tried to match its commercial success. Camelot brought Mario Golf to the Nintendo 64, and now some of its former employees bring arcade golf to the Playstation2. This title has been somewhat of a sleeper hit in Japan, and this caught the ever-watchful eye of Electronic Arts, who will know be bringing it to the United States as Swing Away Golf. Theyve got a little bit of work to do before this title achieves "Hit" status, but its not a bad all around effort. Grab your clubs, hop in the cart and lets play a round of "Game Review Golf".

Golf Paradise tees off with a brief FMV introduction, which nicely shows off some of the Playstation2's power. All the golfers are shown doing those "wacky" things video golfers like to do. After this little intro you are taken to the main menu screen. There you can choose from a variety of options: Stroke, Match Play, Practice, and Story Mode. There is also a nice tutorial mode that takes you to the driving range to give you tips on improving your game. Story Mode is where I spent most of my time, as it allowed me to experience the game as most people will play it. Upon starting Story Mode, you will be asked to choose your character. There are seven characters available initially, and there are three more available to be unlocked. The story mode takes place as a season of golf, one where you are able to pick and choose what you want to do. You can head off to the driving range, challenge a rival to a match, play in a local amateur event, or once every few weeks, play in a pro tournament. The thing I enjoyed about this was that it was strictly up to me to decide what I wanted to do. Challenge that guy that looks like Tiger, wipe up the field in amateur tourney, it was all up to me. When youve felt that you have accomplished what you wanted to do during a particular week, you simply click the button and move on to the next week. Youll want to play a fair amount of matches because that is how you improve your character. Winning matches earns you points, which you can use to improve your characters attributes. Money can also be won so you can go on a shopping spree in the pro-shop. There you can purchase new clubs, shoes, balls, and even gloves. I was particularly impressed with the amount of detail that went into designing the pro-shop. It is beautifully rendered, and it looks like it could be a real store, very nice. Each week the courses get progressively more difficult, and your opponents improve, making it difficult to hold on to that top spot youve worked so hard to attain.

T&E threw in a couple of other features to increase the replay value of this game. Four-Player mode is available for those of you with four friends patient enough to sit around and play eighteen holes of video golf. A random course generator is also available to mix things up a bit. If you are tired of playing the same courses over and over again, you just tell the computer what you are looking for in a course. Similar to the terrain editor found in the SimCity series, you can input the number of trees, the amount of water, and the terrain type of your ideal course. The computer takes this information, and voila! a new course is born. No doubt you PC gamers out there are saying "Big Deal, Ive been able to build my own course for years." While that is true, this is the first time this feature has been brought to a console and although it is somewhat limited in its features it is a much appreciated addition to the game. The sheer amounts of options available earn this game a birdie here.

As we wind up play on the front nine, well take a look at the game play. The gameplay of Golf Paradise has its ups and downs. For the most part the ups outweigh the downs, but there are enough negatives to keep me from getting hooked on this title. Lets start with the good things. The game does a nice job of conveying the feeling of hitting a good shot. The camera zooms out, and shows your ball sailing across the blue sky with a trail of glitter following it, giving you a real sense of crushing your tee shot. Overall I thought putting was done nicely; although it was a bit difficult to learn you are rewarded for your efforts. Thats about all of the good gameplay elements, lets examine what is wrong. Erratic controls really kill how much fun this game could really be. The game uses a C-shaped meter so often seen in PC golf games. I really had a problem seeing the meter when it got closer to its peak. It sort of fades out in the distance, leaving you guessing where you need to hit the ball. Now I understand that golf is not an exact science, sometimes youll hit you 9-iron 115 yards, and sometimes youll hit it 120, but this game takes that randomness to the extreme. I would often hit a club 180 yards according to the meter, only to watch it travel 150 yards in the air and roll another 10. While this is a minor gripe most of the time, there is a legitimate problem with the game when it comes s to chipping out of the rough. A small graphic shows the lie of your ball, and how much power will be lost when hitting it. If this number is fifty, the ball will travel approximately half as far as my power meter says it will. This would be fine and dandy if this was actually the case, but its not. A shot that should go fifty yards after taking into account the lie sometimes only goes ten yards. Consequently a poor approach shot into a bunker or the tall grass can cost you three strokes. This is very aggravating, and had the Dualshock2 not been so expensive it probably would have gotten a few tosses across the room. There is also an odd trail that seems like it shows the projected flight path of the ball, but it doesnt. According to this trail, the flight path for a 4,5,6,7,8 or 9 iron is the same about half of the time. This doesnt make sense, and it makes it very difficult to shape your shots the way you want. It seems that most of the difficulty in this game comes from erratic shot making, not from the course itself. The courses are not very dynamic in their layout, and dont change much in difficulty outside of elevating the greens, and adding horizontal water hazards.

Since this game seems to be going for Hot Shots title of "Best Arcade Golf Game", Id like to address a few other gameplay areas where it falls short. The load times are really long, and with a 24x CD-ROM and a machine as powerful as the PS2 theres no excuse for that. Between holes the game sometimes takes 15 seconds to load the upcoming hole. This kills the momentum of the game, which is really bad when you are trying to maintain an arcade feel. The load time issue rears its ugly head again when playing a match against the computer. As the computer gets ready to address the ball, the game freezes up as it loads the swing animation. While a minor nuisance, its really a simple problem that could have been corrected with a little effort. Hopefully EA wont let us down when it comes to the small details like this. On the par five gameplay hole, T&E miss a two-foot putt and make a bogey.

After grabbing a sandwich at the turn, we head off to the back nine. Graphically this game is outstanding. Since T&E allow you to move the camera to look anywhere, you know they are proud of the way this game looks. If you pull the camera up over the hole, you are able to look out over the entire course, and although everything outside the current hole is pre-rendered it is a nice touch. An odd glitch with the camera makes it impossible to move it over water hazards, this is a bit odd, but does little harm. The lakes and horizontal water-hazards are also well done, as the lakes boast some of the most realistic water I have ever seen. I found myself constantly distracted by the suns reflection glistening off the water, it is really amazing. This game shows off its fantastic graphics in all aspects of gameplay. As a golfer myself there are certain things I expect to see when playing a golf game, and this game does a nice job of covering them. The fairways are cut realistically, the driving range looks just like a real driving range, there are birds are in the trees, and you can even find ducks swimming around the water hazards. Golf Paradise chips in off the fringe for a birdie here, impressive indeed.

When judging the sound in golf games, a good score is often earned when the soundtrack doesnt annoy you. Sure you like realistic club sounds, and birds chirping, but you really dont want some lame announcer and miserable background music ruining your day on the links. The good news here is this games sound does just that, it doesnt bother you. The sound of the club striking the ball is good; a driver sounds different than a 9-iron, the sound of the ball dropping into the cup sounds nice, and there is a small amount of ambient background noise. The music is average, and although one or two of the tunes are catchy, you wont be looking for this soundtrack on Napster. A two putt gives the audio team a par on the eighteenth hole.

Lets see what our scorecard says: two birdies, a par, and a bogey. One under par, not bad at all, but lets look at the whole picture. Overall, this title is very close to being something special but major parts of the game feel slightly rushed, and its problems keep it from being one of those titles you can play over and over again. As I stated before, EA has picked this title up for release in the United States. If they are able to speed up the load times, and make hitting the ball less of headache inducing event, this game could surpass the original Hot Shots Golf as the best golf game for a home console.