Dreamy Links
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 proves that, yes, you can improve on near-perfection.
Published: June 23, 2008
It should be pretty obvious by now that I'm something of a Hot Shots Golf fan. Luckily, there's a pretty good reason for all the love I have for the series: it's friggin' awesome. It seems no matter the platform, no matter the tech, longtime series developer Clap Hanz never seems to get tired of going back to the virtual links and it shows; Open Tee 2, their latest, may not have all the advances that [game=1055]its PS3 cousin[/games] had, but it's by far the best game of portable golf you can find.
Much of that comes down to the fact that the gameplay is about as polished here with the "old" system as you can get. Yes, I miss my fancy-shmancy new Advanced Swing mechanic from the PS3 game, and the omission of some of the more advanced moves like the pinpoint hits on the edge of the shank zone with the traditional three-click meter are sorely missed, but there's still so much love poured into the course designs and control options that it's not as big a loss as I thought.
Having some shared options between the PSP and PS3 versions of Hot Shots Golf helps too. Stuff like the loyalty meter that rewards you for scoring big points during normal Challenge Mode play that in turn unlocks more advanced moves like being able to hit Triangle and Circle instead of X on the final tap to tweak power settings if you mis-timed the second tap. Or the return of more advanced chip-in options like a homing/rising shot that, if you hit the pin on a chip-in, you'll pull off some impossible shots.
These are all basic tweaks on the familiar game, however, and to be honest, there's not a whole lot in Open Tee 2 that's new, which leaves the course design in conjunction with club and ball selection to keep things lively. Oh, the structure of Challenge Mode, where you'll choose specific events to compete in, sometimes with unlockables, then choose a card (two if you're up by at least three strokes at the end of the game), which go toward a total pool that unlocks a character you can play against to add to your stable of golfers, that's different, but the game itself is definitely familiar stuff.
That doesn't mean unlocking all those cards can't add plenty of depth. As you move up the ladders in the Challenge Mode circuit, the card requirements for unlocking the one-on-one duels with those new characters get higher and higher. If you spend a little extra time to nab five cards from the various types of challenges, you can actually level up your character's abilities in power, control and spin. These are shared across the board, so it really does pay spend a little extra time "grinding" the challenges before moving on to the "boss" battles.
There is one interesting little tweak to things that I actually found surprisingly addictive, though: there are hidden objects (the first game's characters, unique clubs, accessories, etc.) on just about every course -- usually only visible during the more dramatic camera angles post-swing. By skimming around the course after spotting one using the pre-swing camera, you can find the little glimmering icons and then proceed to search that area for something. Ah, but many of them require that you be playing with a specific golfer or have a rare item equipped (this instantly justifies the whole system for throwing accessories on your golfer beyond their normal veery slight stat boosts), so there's a ton of replay if you want to show off online.
Much of that comes down to the fact that the gameplay is about as polished here with the "old" system as you can get. Yes, I miss my fancy-shmancy new Advanced Swing mechanic from the PS3 game, and the omission of some of the more advanced moves like the pinpoint hits on the edge of the shank zone with the traditional three-click meter are sorely missed, but there's still so much love poured into the course designs and control options that it's not as big a loss as I thought.
Having some shared options between the PSP and PS3 versions of Hot Shots Golf helps too. Stuff like the loyalty meter that rewards you for scoring big points during normal Challenge Mode play that in turn unlocks more advanced moves like being able to hit Triangle and Circle instead of X on the final tap to tweak power settings if you mis-timed the second tap. Or the return of more advanced chip-in options like a homing/rising shot that, if you hit the pin on a chip-in, you'll pull off some impossible shots.
These are all basic tweaks on the familiar game, however, and to be honest, there's not a whole lot in Open Tee 2 that's new, which leaves the course design in conjunction with club and ball selection to keep things lively. Oh, the structure of Challenge Mode, where you'll choose specific events to compete in, sometimes with unlockables, then choose a card (two if you're up by at least three strokes at the end of the game), which go toward a total pool that unlocks a character you can play against to add to your stable of golfers, that's different, but the game itself is definitely familiar stuff.
That doesn't mean unlocking all those cards can't add plenty of depth. As you move up the ladders in the Challenge Mode circuit, the card requirements for unlocking the one-on-one duels with those new characters get higher and higher. If you spend a little extra time to nab five cards from the various types of challenges, you can actually level up your character's abilities in power, control and spin. These are shared across the board, so it really does pay spend a little extra time "grinding" the challenges before moving on to the "boss" battles.
There is one interesting little tweak to things that I actually found surprisingly addictive, though: there are hidden objects (the first game's characters, unique clubs, accessories, etc.) on just about every course -- usually only visible during the more dramatic camera angles post-swing. By skimming around the course after spotting one using the pre-swing camera, you can find the little glimmering icons and then proceed to search that area for something. Ah, but many of them require that you be playing with a specific golfer or have a rare item equipped (this instantly justifies the whole system for throwing accessories on your golfer beyond their normal veery slight stat boosts), so there's a ton of replay if you want to show off online.
