PGA Tour Golf

"Um...would playtesting really have cost THAT MUCH?"

PGA Tour Golf was one of the first Golf games released for the Super Nintendo, back in 1991. It was also an Early Electronic Arts title, from before they were regarded as THE Sports Game Company. Um....there's no story here--it is a Golf game after all--so let's just get on with the ratings.

Graphics: 8/10- For an early SNES game, they're really pretty good. You can tell the difference between fairway and rough, and shallow rough and deep rough (Something that's hard to do in its Genesis counterpart). The water looks good, and...um...trees are...nice....
The pre-game Graphics are pretty nice too. Notice, however, that the announcing team of Bing Gordon and Bob Zbydel (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) look something like an overly enthusiastic Vince McMahon and Jason Alexander (George on Seinfeld), respectively. There's not a lot of animation, but what's there is good. Notice that Player 2 wears a smashing pink shirt when you play with multiple players.

Sound: 7/10- There's really not a lot here, but what's there is very good. The birds sound good, and the sound of the club whacking the ball is quite realistic, though every club sounds like a Driver. Weird. The opening theme is also very cool; Bruplex, my brother and I have been known to rock out to it before starting the actual game. However, there's no other music in the game. Too bad.

Control: 6/10- Taking shots is really pretty easy. There's a meter that goes back and forth, which is started and stopped by pressing A three times--once to start, the second to determine power (Note that you automatically hit a power shot if you elect not to do anything at all--a nice feature), the third to determine accuracy. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Gameplay: 2/10- Yipe. Bruplex once said something about how he heard this game wasn't playtested; they just kind of ported it over from PC and assumed that everything would be alright. After playing this game I'm inclined to believe him. Let's take you through a typical hole, shall we?

You step up to the tee, Driver in hand. There's a 2 mile an hour wind, which you barely feel in real life. You hit a perfect tee shot....that goes 20 yards into the rough, thanks to that 2 mile an hour wind I mentioned. That's 1 stroke.

The wind picks up to about 7-8MPH for your second shot. You decide to compensate, taking out a 1-iron and hitting into the wind. This time you end up in the OTHER rough, because the 7-8MPH wind magically didn't do a thing to your ball. Not only that, but you're now near some trees as well. Stroke number 2.

You're still, oh, 50 yards from the hole at this point. Taking out your Sand Wedge, you decide to hit over the tree. You hit nice and high, clearing the tree....then the tree grows magic limbs and shoots your ball out of the sky! Or at least that's what seems to happen, since you hear the sound of ball hitting tree and the ball magically goes crashing to the ground, despite it not even being in the screen. Huh. Shot 3.

You're still right in front of the tree. You select your Driver, figuring what the heck, you're just gonna hit the tree anyway. To your astonishment, the ball flies RIGHT THROUGH the tree and lands about 100 yards over the green! Taking a look at the replay, however, the ball clearly hit the tree and is resting in the same place you shot it from, not 100 yards away where you clearly hit it to. Nice camera work guys! Shot 4....

Finally, you hit a good shot to within 7 feet of the cup. But that's your 5th stroke, so you're putting for at least Bogey here. Not cool.

You wind up, putt directly at the hole, but tragically, come up a bit short. The game tells you the putt went....8 FEET?! WHAT THE ****!? Last I checked, that would imply that the ball went TOO FAR. Guess Electronic Arts is using that New Math stuff.....Shot 6.

Disgusted, you finally tap in for a 7. Now repeat 17 more times, and you have the typical round of PGA Tour Golf. Fun? Not at all.

Story: NA/10- ''Win Tourneys.'' Not a story.

Challenge: 10/10- Thanks to the fact that the game defies all the conventional laws of Physics, it's tough. Even tougher, though, is not throwing your controller in frustration after hitting a 7 foot putt 8 feet and having it come up short 6 times a round.

Replay Value: 4/10- It's strange. There's a fair amount of modes, including Single Round, Practice Green, and Tournament. In addition, you can Create-A-Golfer (Only initials, though) and the game will keep track of its stats as you play. And as bad as the game is, it's somehow, addicting. Still, realistically you'll get tired of it before too long.

Overall: 5/10- As I said earlier, it's a really bad game that somehow manages to be pretty addicting at the same time. As a result, I was torn over what score to give it. I almost leaned to a 6, making it slightly above average. Alas, there are simply too many ''Bugs'' and the like to warrant the game. Still, I would recommend this game to see what EA in the early days was like, or if you want, albeit badly programmed, golf game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/01, Updated 07/02/01