We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

In a matter of days, the world of video-golf is expected to be revolutionized by Tiger Woods 10, utilizing Wii Motion Plus. Long before this new tech, Camelot released a competent golf game published through Capcom making use of the standard wiimote successfully. How this game was produced without a pun in the name, however, is anyone’s guess.

Camelot has a rich history of developing golf games, particularly in both the Mario Golf and Hot Shots Golf series. Though “We Love Golf” makes use of the Wii’s motion controls, people who have played the past works of Camelot are immediately going to find that the core mechanics are quite familiar.

This game makes no attempt to accomplish one-to-one motion controls and that is why it is able to succeed where I feel the pre-motion plus Tiger Woods games have failed. Your shot is initiated by holding down the “A” button. You then slowly move your arms back until an icon lines up on a meter at your desired amount of power. Another icon then starts to move toward your spot on the power meter. Once it connects, it will reverse in direction. From that point on, it is simply about timing. Perform your swing just as the icon shoots across the target at the start of the meter. A timely swing will result in an accurate shot.

There are a few other things you can do to modify your shot as well. Holding the “1″ button during your swing will add top spin while the “2″ button will add back spin. Performing a fade or draw shot is as simple as tilting the wiimote left or right for the duration of the swing. Overall, the controls are pretty easy to pick up and I’ve even had a non-gamer relative do quite well.

There are a variety of mostly forgettable characters that can be unlocked by challenging them in a one-on-one match. After they are unlocked, you can play them again on a harder difficulty to unlock a version of them with a longer drive distance and less accuracy. In addition, each character has a special costume that can be unlocked. The special costumes are all based on Capcom characters; from Chun Li to Apollo Justice. You can also slap the face of one of your Miis onto the body of one of their characters which looks both creepy and hilarious.

My biggest complaint with this game is that the difficulty curve in the Tournament Mode is too slow. The first time I went through all the courses, I never felt that I was in danger of not getting first place. Part of this was due to how incredibly easy it is to get the exact amount of power you want in your shot. Luckily, as you go through the later renditions of the courses, things start to get more interesting. Playing from the back tee with stronger winds and even rain make the tournaments much more fulfilling, and first place much less guaranteed. Still, it would have been nice if the difficulty increased much sooner.

In spite of that, I find myself coming back to this game primarily in two situations. First off, I find this game to be extremely relaxing alone. Playing a round of We Love Golf can help me to deal with a stressful day, and I attribute part of that to how easy it is to control your shot (especially your power). I got through the early tournaments without boredom by thinking less about the competition and more about just playing a relaxing game of golf. The second situation is multiplayer. Both non-gamers and gamers alike can enjoy playing together on an equal level because of its accessibility.

It will be interesting to compare this game with the upcoming Tiger Woods 10. I have no doubt that Tiger will end up providing a more in-depth golfing simulator, but will it be as easy for my non-gamer friends and family to pick up? Will it be even easier? Time will tell when I pick up the bundle releasing this week.

Tags: Camelot, capcom, Casual Games, Fashionably Late Reviews, golf, Tiger Woods, We Love Golf, Wii Motion Plus

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.