Super Swing Golf

As you might expect from a Wii game, Super Swing Golf plays unlike practically any golf game you've played in the past. The basics of the swing are easy. When you line up at the ball, you first want to aim your shot. To do so, you first press the "1" button on the Wii controller, which sets up the free-roaming camera. From there, you can hold down the trigger button and zoom to any part of the hole by pressing forward or back with the Wii controller, or aiming it left, right, up, or down. By pressing "1" again, you switch to a top-down view of the hole, which you can also zoom around as described above. Moving the Wii controller can be a bit imprecise when aiming your shot, for finer movements you can always use the directional pad.

Once you've lined up your shot's direction, the next thing to take into consideration is the distance you wish to hit the ball. On a tee shot or a second shot on a par 5, you're normally fine just to swing away at maximum distance. It's when you have to pay attention to distance on a short chip or other approach shot that the yardage really becomes a factor. Information onscreen will tell you how far away you are from the hole, as well as the maximum distance of your current club. To switch clubs, you press up or down on the D pad. With both direction and distance taken care of, it's time to take your swing.

A distance meter runs along the bottom part of the screen, and when you begin your swing by first clicking the trigger and then moving your arms back, as you would with a traditional golf swing, you'll notice that the meter begins to fill up. At any point as the meter fills up, you can choose to "lock in" your power level by pressing the A button (located just under the D pad) and holding it down during your follow-through. The game measures how quick your actual swing is, so even if you have a fully charged shot, a weak swing will still result in shorter distance. You can even add spin to your shot by choosing the ball icon and indicating the type of spin you want with the D pad. Where the game's challenge really lies is in the Wii's approximation of your club face. How "straight" your Wii controller is at the moment your club makes contact with the ball will determine how accurate a shot you hit. Opening or closing the club face to the ball by accident can drastically alter your shot, and not usually in a beneficial way. There is some "give" there in the shot, but if you don't concentrate, it's easy to shank a ball into the rough or out-of-bounds altogether.

One other tweak to the gameplay is the idea of power shots. As you make skillful shots, you'll build up a meter for your player. Fill up one "cell" of your meter, and you'll have access to a couple of power shots. The first, known as the tomahawk, is essentially a lob shot, which is useful when you have to hit over an obstacle like a tree. The second, the cobra shot, is essentially a low punch shot that should be used in high-wind conditions. Because you can hold on to these shots for a while, you'll probably want to save them until you really need them; that said, your power-shot meter can deplete if you screw things up on the course, so watch out.

One of the best parts of Super Swing Golf is the absolute boatload of things to customize in the game. The sheer number of outfits, accessories, and clubs available to your character from the start is amazing. Not only will you find loads of preset outfits, such as cowgirl, policeman, farmer, and even Tecmo-specific getups like a Ninja Gaiden costume, but you can also mix and match your character's look with various hats, glasses, shirts, pants, and gloves. In addition to your standard clubs, the game lets you use specialized clubs such as umbrellas, baseball bats, and our personal favorite, a menacing medieval lineup of maces and clubs that looks like something straight out of Braveheart. There are also a number of golf balls to choose from, including Suezo from Monster Rancher fame. Many of the objects you can equip offer you bonuses to various aspects of your golf game, such as power, accuracy, and spin, among others. You can also spend your hard-earned cash on upgrades for various golfer attributes in between matches. It's just too bad the game won't include online play; sharing your customized characters with other players on the Internet could be a lot of fun.

Super Swing Golf features both single-player and multiplayer for up to four players. Single-player modes include match and stroke play, as well as a story mode currently known as Pangya-Fest (though that name will likely change in the final version). Each of the eight characters you can choose from in the story mode will feature a different story and, as you progress through the different courses in the game, the stories will change depending on how well (or poorly) you perform. There are 11 courses to play on in the game, and in story mode, you will play these courses across five difficulty levels. The higher the difficulty level of a course, the more challenging it will be to play--tougher greens, longer fairways, and stronger winds are just a few of the different types of obstacles you'll go up against at stiffer difficulty levels. We tried the story mode with a crusty old dude known as Uncle Bob as our character and found that the artificial intelligence opponents in the game are tougher than you might expect; you'll have to have your basic swing together to get very far in Super Swing's story mode.

Where Super Swing will likely find the majority of its replay value is in its multiplayer. Here, up to four people can take part in match and stroke play, as well as in a mode called balloon pop. One smart thing the developers have done with the multiplayer is let you share the controller, so even if you've got three friends and just one controller, you can all take turns on the virtual links. Even better, the game lets every golfer choose between a right- or left-handed controller setup before the match begins, so nobody gets left out. While match and stroke play games are self-explanatory, the balloon pop mode could use some description. Here, the idea is to pop as many balloons hanging in midair as you can. To add challenge, your opponents can move a small icon on the screen by waving their Wii controllers back and forth to distract you. Even better, by moving their icons close to a balloon, they can nudge the balloon in different directions, making it that much tougher to hit your targets.
The game's bright, cartoonish visual style is very reminiscent of Sony's Hot Shots series, though the Tecmo-specific gear and characters add a flair that is very much its own. Our favorite aspect of the presentation was the breezy, infectious music that played throughout. It wasn't long before we were humming along with the tunes in between swings; for lack of a better term, the music just sounds "Nintendo-esque."

With an appealing style, tons of customization, and challenging but not imposing gameplay, Super Swing Golf looks as though it will be a nice golfing alternative for Nintendo's newest console. The game is arriving just a few weeks after the Wii is set to hit store shelves, and we'll have a full review once the game is released.