Lets Golf!
by Chris Thomas on Tuesday 24th Mar 2009

The characters do look disturbingly like Bratz dolls

My favourite thing about Golf as a game (besides from riding the carts around) are the picturesque landscapes you get to walk around. As a game its okay sure, balls are involved, clubs are involved; it has the right ingredients their is no denying, but it's not exactly minute to minute excitement. If however you do take the time to hunt down a real golf course and do so on a sunny day you will have an extremely enjoyable time whether you're any good at the game or not. A well looked after golf course is like a Garden of Eden compared to the nightmarish hellscapes our society has created for itself. Lets Golf! by Gameloft is like putting a garden of Eden in your pocket.

The screenshots will no doubt have piqued your interest. This game looks great right? It looks even better in motion I assure you. With the exception of some slight slowdown during the camera's pans of the course at the start of each hole Lets Golf! is a graphical tour de force. Each course is lovingly rendered and chock full of details (planes fly past in the distance, wind blows leaves from trees), the colours are vibrant and the presentation is second to none. Even the menu's are handled perfectly, not just in terms of aesthetics but also usability. As an example, from the main menu I changed the control scheme from simple to advanced, then, in the middle of a tournament, I decided the advanced scheme wasn't for me. Terrified I would have to play through the next 7 holes with the advanced control scheme I took a tentative look through the pause menu and found to my delight that you can change control scheme on the fly! It doesn't sound like a big deal but the two different schemes each have their own user interface and heads up display (HUD) so having the game able to amend this on the go is superb, it is also indicative of a great product made with care and attention.

Gameloft have packed an impressive amount of content into this app. With 4 complete and very different golf courses (each consisting of 18 holes), 4 golfers plus unlockable clothes and gear for each this game will keep you driving and putting for quite some time (note: driving is a golfers term for “hitting it hard and far at the start of a hole”). If there is one area of the game that hasn’t been fleshed out enough it’s the audio. Each course seems to have one theme, by the 18th hole you will be pretty sick of it. It’s not a major gripe but it would have been easily avoided had Gameloft allowed users to play their iPod music in the background as so many other apps do.

Golf is a game that translates very well to a touch screen. Just like in Tiger on the Wii you can zoom in on where your ball is likely to land and drag the target grid around with your finger. Doing so will also automatically change the club you have selected to account for the changes in distance, although you can also manually select clubs if you are that way inclined. You can also nudge your aim to the left or right by tapping either side of your little golfing avatar (which, by the way, look like Bratz dolls). Now depending on your selected control scheme you will swing in one of two ways. If you have the “Classic” scheme selected pressing the bottom right corner of the screen brings up the traditional power/aim meter leaving you to press once to determine the strength of the stroke and a second time for the accuracy. If you wish to get fancy you can go “Advanced” which see’s you simulate the strike by pulling your finger back in an arch and then violently downwards. Personally I can’t recommend the latter technique but I suspect this will be down to personal taste. Once the ball is airborne you can then add spin by dragging across a virtual ball that appears in the bottom left. The whole system works great and for those of you that didn’t quite follow all of the above then don’t worry, there is a tutorial mode accessible from the options menu.

Lets Golf! Is iPhone gaming done right. It looks beautiful, easily surpassing most games available on the Nintendo DS with its visuals, it benefits from the touch screen and it delivers incredible value. Burn it to a cartridge or UMD and this is a game that could retail for £24.99 on any other handheld system. With the exception of some slightly repetitive music (and for some reason this app was immune to my iPhones “mute” switch) Lets Golf! is a highly recommended title, not just for fans of the sport, but also for anyone that’s looking for quality on the App Store.