My fantasy baseball website, SimYard, was featured on a podcast today on Baseball Zealot Radio.  You can find the podcast here.  We also talked quite a bit about Japanese baseball.  I was a cheerleader for the Hanshin Tigers last season and we had an interesting discussion about that.

Hot Shots Golf has been one of the best golf franchises on the Playstation, and the newest incarnation continues that tradition.  It won’t be released in the United States until sometime in 2008, but thanks to the lack of region encoding on the Playstation 3, there’s no longer a need to wait.  The name in Japanese translates to “Everybody’s Golf”, and there’s been hints that the game may be released in the US as “Everybody’s Golf 5″ instead of “Hot Shots Golf 5″.

The defining characteristic of this game, and what makes it so much fun, is twofold.  First, the physics are very precise and predictable.  If the ball doesn’t go where you think it should have gone, there’s a reason for it, and it’s usually immediately obvious.  Oh, I forgot to take into account my lie, or the wind, or the fact that the green is 25 feet lower than the tee.  It’s math, pure and simple.  The second part is that aside from the seriousness with which they made the physics engine, there’s nothing else about this game that’s serious.  The characters are comical, both the golfers and the caddies, and the ball bursts into flames in the air when you hit it with perfect impact.

Minna no Golf 5 is a step in the same direction as Hot Shots Golf FORE (PS2) and Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee (PSP).  As in previous editions, you step your way through challenges, increasing your ranking and unlocking more challeges.  Most of these challenges are a 30-player tournament (you + 29 computers) along 9 holes, and eventually 18 holes.  Each rank has a head-to-head challenge with a different character, though, the prize of which is unlocking that character for your use.

The biggest change to gameplay with this version is the upgrade to the swing meter.  You can use the swing meter in its classic mode, in which nothing is changed, or you can use the new mode which does away with this meter.  Instead, you look at the actual backswing of the character.  You have to tap the button to start the swing, then again at the top of the swing (marked by a red glow) and then again when the swing reaches the bottom.  There are a couple of visual cues which make this process really intuitive, and overall it works really well.  When putting, a holographic ball extends out ahead of you to show how far the shot power will take the ball.  These two simple changes are both steps up, and it was nice that they didn’t mess too much with something that has always worked well.

Hot Shots Golf: FORE (PS2) had a basic and fun online mode where you can play in tournaments with other players.  All of you golf each hole simultaneously, and then return to a lobby to wait for the others to finish where you get a one-line chat interface built-into the scoreboard.  This is essentially unchanged in Minna no Golf 5 except that you can see the other players golfing with you as silhouettes while you go through the hole.  This is quite fun.  Also, there is a lobby where you have an avatar you can walk around with, and you unlock new clothes and accessories for your avatar.  There are also scheduled major tournaments at certain times, and you can enter them and get ranked.  This is quite enjoyable, works well, and is quite Japanese.  I will be curious to see how this is implemented in the American version, or if they decide to change it.

Overall, I’m very happy with this game.  The most important thing is that it’s faithful to the series, which I have always gotten lots of play time out of.  The upgrades they made were all succinct and meaningful, and really add to the game without detracting from what has always been the core fun element of the game.  Good job!

I highly recommend this game!  Import it from Japan if you’re feeling adventurous, or wait six months or so until it comes out here.  It’s also planned for a December 2007 release as a demo in the Playstation Store, so look for that.