Kidz Sports: Crazy Mini Golf Wii Nintendo Review

3322 Posted on 19.10.2008

It seems that a week doesn’t go by without somebody or another trying to snatch away a slither of Nintendo’s glory on Wii, whether it be with a mini-game collection ala Wii Play or a sports game to try and rival Wii Sports; debatably, none of which have been topped. One of the latest takes on the latter to try and best its golf game – could this be the one to topple it?

The Popcorn Arcade series of games that have been tipped out all over Wii have been of dubious quality, to say the least; cheap cash-ins would be an easy category to lump them into, if we’re being nice. Kidz Sports: Crazy Mini Golf (henceforth to be referred to as ‘Crazy Mini Golf’) is a member of this series, so it would be quite fair to be wary. However, it manages to be a cut above its brothers and sisters in actually providing a game that is, if you can ignore the woeful presentation, pretty decent. It’s not going to appear in lists of peoples’ recommended games, but if you’ve got nothing else about you’re at least not going to rip your own face off rather than play it.

Crazy Mini Golf is set over four worlds, each with an 18 hole course, and the title tells you all you really need to know about your objectives. The course design is suitably ‘crazy’, starting out with simple angled courses to get you into the swing of things, but soon the devious loops and twists start to come out for the real challenge; plus, it’s set in places like an island resort or the arctic, so you just know it warrants the first part of its title. You’ve got two options of control scheme in there as well: arcade and simulation. Both have you holding the remote pointing down like a golf club, face buttons outward, with the d-pad’s left and right controlling aim, with camera duties being afforded to up and down. The arcade setting has you tapping A when you’re ready, pulling the Wii remote back, golf club style, to set your power, and finally taking your shot by just tapping B with no swing. Simulation is the same except you follow through with the shot; you pull back, hit A, retain the same angle as best you can and swing forward. Both options are very sensitive in the movement that they pick up, perhaps even slightly more so than Wii Sports Golf, but sadly taking shots quickly isn’t an option if you want to remain accurate, as there is a slight lag between your movement and the adjustment on the power metre, meaning if you do it too quickly you won’t actually hit the ball with the power that you wanted. Ultimately we felt that the arcade set up was the best as it is difficult to judge the power of shots when using the simulation mode.

Gameplay

A decent game of mini golf to be had here, we say. One of the control schemes, arcade, works rather grandly; it’s a shame that simulation leans towards the side of ‘doesn’t work’ until you’re used to it, mainly because it’s difficult to judge the power of the swing.

Graphics

Dreadful. The Nuyus are the best bit about it, and they’re not going to win any beauty contests. The backgrounds are just animations or still images, and the geometry of the courses doesn’t really raise above ‘simple’ either.

Sound

The music’s alright in a completely boring but inoffensive way, but the sound effects…we’re not even going to talk about those anymore. Crap.

Value

You’ve got four courses to go through – it won’t last forever, but it should keep you entertained enough for a bit.

Cubed3 Rating

5/10

Mediocre

About this score

Crazy Mini Golf is not a game of the year, nor a game of the month, but it is a solid effort that, with any luck, shows signs of improvement in the Popcorn Arcade range of games. The gameplay as a whole generally works despite some niggles; it just needed to be tweaked and have everything else done again on the presentation side. It can’t be denied, however, that there are superior golf games on Wii, mainly with EA’s ever-improving Tiger Woods series. Or you could go out and play the real thing.