G4TV

Golf on Wii Sports is a whole lot of fun, but let’s face it, “shallow” is almost too kind an adjective to describe the experience. It always felt more like a tech demo than an actual game. That’s where the original Super Swing Golf came in. Tecmo’s homage to Hot Shots Golf took the Wii-mote controls and grafted them into a mostly full-featured golf game. Season 2 goes even further.

Tee Time

Season 2 takes everything that was good about the original game and adds a few bits and pieces – most noticeably, a full career mode where players can unlock multiple “paths” through the game. Taking alternate branches along the route to ultimate victory will unlock all kinds of cool little knick knacks and goodies. Of course, you can always just fire up Season 2 and play a single round alone or with three other friends. Unfortunately, Super Swing Golf is still an offline-only experience, something Wii games in general need desperately to get past.

As you can imagine, actually playing Super Swing Golf is a breeze on the most basic levels. Assume the stance; hold your Wii-mote like a golf club, pull back, hit your “A” button, and swing. It’s simple, but a bit more precise than the aforementioned Wii Sports in that your backswing and follow-through don’t have to be done in one fluid motion, and setting your shot “power” can be done at your leisure.

That’s not to say it’s perfect, though. Season 2 still suffers from a lack of precision that can get really frustrating really fast. It’s all in the angle of the Wii-mote as you swing. It’s not uncommon for your ball to cut or slice wildly with the slightest twitch.

Realistic? Sure. Fun? Not at all.

Rough

The other area where Super Swing Golf Season 2 fails to impress is in the visuals department. The entire thing feels like a direct rip off of Sony’s Hot Shots Golf, except the whole thing looks like a GameCube game.

With cartoony visuals such as these, that’s not as important as it might be otherwise. Still, though, it’s a bit disappointing to see an otherwise fun game suffering from such “previous-gen” production values. That and the Hot Shots Golf thing has been done to death already.

Birdie

Despite being formulaic and a little bit frustrating at times, Super Swing Golf Season 2 is a solid addition to the Wii’s sports lineup. These are the types of games the console was tailor made for, and it’s nice to see a third-party publisher using the innovative controller the way it was intended.

Review by: Greg Stewart