Sid Meier's SimGolf

"Great game, great price...great EVERYTHING!"

Maxis, who is basically the King Midas of PC gaming (everything they do is awesome), made the recent SimGolf, a game where you operate and run a golf course. This game has many fun and unique features there are yet to discover by the player, fully engaging him and to see the hours of fun passed by this great game.

Gameplay. (9/10)

Simply amazing. The way of building a course is so easy, yet the idea of building a complex golf course in a game could be so confusing to the unexperienced game developers. Basically, you have landscape options, where you have a tee, and a hole. You first build the tee anywhere in the map, and you put the hole away from the tee. Then, you can open the hole for the golfers to play on. But before doing so, you might want to put some fairway space, some more green, and maybe some sandtraps or trees. The golfers who come play at such holes usually pay money (in the 100s) according to how they liked that particular hole. This all adds up to the fun rating. If the fun rating is rather high, certain commissioners come and play on the course. They may grant money, land grants for further expansion, or landmarks depending on who played and how much they liked it. Also, the amount of holes gives your course a certain rating. 1-9 holes in your course make up a normal course. 10-18 holes in the course make up a country club course. And 18- holes in the course make up a championships course.
If the courses are really famous, you might have the option of building a house lot, which are residential areas with really high land value prices, that are bought by certain celebrities. Golfers may enjoy the precense of their favorite golfer right in the course they are playing, which also adds up to the fun rating of the course.
After building a complete (18 holes) course, you can leave the course and start building another one. However, you cannot go back to a previous course.
Scenarios or goals are not present throught the game. Basically, your goal is to build a successful golf course, and have enough money to buy another one, so the developers basically wanted more freedom in the game, restricting you of making you do certain things you don't want to do, which is good in a way. Don't forget that you can also play your own courses, which is something that adds up to the ''fun rating'' in the game itself when you're bored of building courses.

Graphics (10/10)
These graphics are pretty good. They are very smooth and clear, no blurs, pixels or anything in the game. They're crisp and clean. There could be a little lag on the scrolling, but it's not something to be annoyed of. Take into account that I'm playing this game on a 2-year old computer with hardly 800 MB of space left.

Sounds (10/10)
Just go to a golf course when you're in distress, and listen to the smooth sound of animals flocking, the sound of golf clubs striking the course, and the waterfalls and lakes rippling through the environment... or just pause the game and sit and listen, and it's like you're there! The sounds are realistic. When you build many of one features, it can be a habitat for a certain kind of animal. Then the sound of that animal will be present when you are in the screen. All the sounds soothe the gameplay, and the ''talk'' of the golfers (which are just sounds the golfer's make with the mouth, not real words) make an ambient of what the golfers are thinking. Simple: Amazing.

Replayability (10/10)
I keep coming to this game more than I keep coming to any other game. Even with Age of Empires and SimCity 4. It has an addictive feeling that makes you keep coming for more.

Rent or buy
Buy. Definitely. With the recent price drop to 10 dollars, there's never been a better time to try it out. Don't even think about it. Just stop reading this text, get up, and go to a Wal-Mart or EB Games or Best Buy and buy it. It will be the best $10 you'll probably spend in your life.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/03