1. One of these days Sony is going to realize it can easily port Hot Shots Golf to mobile devices and they will make so much money they'll just put their PlayStation division to bed. These games are monumentally addictive.
2. The recipe for this cocktail is simple: arcade-type gameplay w/ rewards doled out occasionally based on successfully completed challenges and some given just for sticking it out. You can do better both by becoming more skilled and by acquiring more these upgrades. One way or the other, you are always progressing no matter what you do.
3. The way you play Hot Shots Golf is you pick where you want your shot to go and then press a button twice w/ and ball ends up closer or farther from where you want it to go based on how well you did that. Environmental factors such as wind and the lay of the golf
course are one also affect where the ball lands and you also have control over the amount of spin you put on
the ball.
4. It has been a very long time since I hit the links myself but Hot Shots has always struck me as having a same feeling of getting into and falling out of the zone as the actual game. If you don't play golf, billiards has the same feeling and so does bowling. Sometimes you get focused just so and the hole seems as big as the moon.
5. So how does the first PSP game in this franchise hold up to the others? Honestly, the graphics and load times are on the same level as PSP games generally and it is otherwise about the same. It has different courses and characters but the same bright, colorful style. This is not a series that needs to reinvent itself.
6. There is cheerful poppy menu music but it's silent accept for a couple voices and environmental sound effects when you are golfing. This is wonderful.
7. The meat of the game is its challenge mode where you play tournaments and vs. matches up against computer opponents. You get to pick one of two playable characters and are awarded more and more options as you push through the game.
8. My biggest complaint about Hot Shots: Open Tee is that all the
shot types are unlocked from the get go and some are pretty basic to
your overall strategy. Not only that, you have to re-unlock them for
each new character you try.
9. There is also very little in the way of tutorials and instruction in the game. You have to look it up in the manual.
10. You can't back out of a tournament or match once you've started it other than to reset your PSP. I am not asking for the ability to save scum after each shot but it would really be nice to be able to quit a round of golf after you've hit a ball into a water hazard three times in a row on the second hole in a course.
11. You can get through the majority of Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee by sheer persistence. You not only gradually get better stats just through playing but eventually luck will win out if you keep trying. One of my favorite moments playing this game was when I was about to lose a Vs. match if the player I was up against could just make a six inch putt. The random number generator decided at this moment that that player should have a catastrophic failure. He turned and actually putted the ball away from the hole, sending the match into sudden death, which I won. Go me!
12. I really wish the multiplayer in this allowed you to just pass a single PSP back and forth between two people. As it is, you need to have two PSPs and two copies of the game and it is hard enough to make friends let alone ones who buy cartoon golf games from 2004.
13. Maybe it is personal to me but the one thing that gives this series a
long lasting appeal is that, for whatever reason, as much as I want to
play it, I don't feel compelled to sit there and put long hours in to do
well. It works really well in shorter sessions--be it a few holes or a
few rounds--and that and the fact that golf is inherently played in
discrete little chunks makes it a perfect match for on-the-go gaming on a
handheld. If you haven't tried this series, don't be afraid to let Open Tee be your intro to Hot Shots Golf. If you have, well, you will just get more of what you love.
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