In Hot Shots Golf 3, you get all the fun and action of a great golf game, with slapstick comedy and a game of crazy! Earn points as you compete and trade for new equipment and new characters
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Hot Shots Golf 3 certainly isn't the most revolutionary addition to this popular series, but it does a good job of retaining the classic gameplay while updating the series to take advantage of the PlayStation2's more powerful hardware. The courses are beautiful, the animation is excellent as always, and the way the ball reacts to the wind, course elements, and irons and woods is realistic. When you screw up, there's never any doubt that it's your fault, not some flaw in the physics engine. Best of all, once a course is loaded, there's never any waiting around after a shot for a position update. The game is butter smooth.
Perhaps the best thing about the game is its immediate accessibility. Players of any skill level can immediately grasp (if not master) the swing meter, where one button press starts the backswing, another determines power, and a third determines accuracy. It's all about rhythm and timing, and pressing on the directional pad during the backswing lets expert players control topspin to finesse their shots, fight a strong wind, or guide the ball through some nearby trees.
As players advance through the tournament and other modes, they gain experience in addition to points for purchasing new equipment and other game enhancements. New clubs, balls, and other items significantly impact the way the game plays. New characters and courses open up as the game progresses, so there's always something new to unlock or master. If any complaint can be leveled at the game, it's that perhaps the designers didn't take the over-the-top theme far enough. Those looking for a strict simulation without the wacky characters and fancy special effects might want to look at Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002. On the other hand, that game's special effects are too sparse to attract people looking for a pure arcade experience, and the character designs are uninspired. Regardless, the game lurking underneath Hot Shots Golf 3's fantasy façade should appeal to any golf fanatic, and the varied course designs combined with plentiful equipment choices guarantee a great deal of replayability. --T. Byrl Baker
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Amazon.com Product Description
Forget tradition, collared shirts, and stuffy resorts--now you can express yourself on the golf course without the snobby attitude. Hot Shots Golf 3 offers nonstop, fast-paced golf action, with a smart-alecky, trash-talking cast of characters. The enhanced graphics deliver vibrant golf environments complete with simulated weather conditions that affect the flight of the ball and the speed of the greens. The new Swing Meter will test your skills with a variety of interfaces depending on the lie of the ball, whether it's in the fairway, rough, tree line, dirt, or sand trap. From the morning mist through dusk, the Time of Day feature provides a realistic approximation of a full day at the golf course. There are no delays between holes, and no delay between the time you pick up the game and the moment you can start playing. However, there is still plenty of depth for golfers of any experience level. Earn Hot Shot Points for superb performances, then cash in your points for equipment and insane gadgets.
Customer Reviews
As Fun As Fun Can Get
Let's get one thing straight: I've never given two shakes about golf, either in real-life or video game form. I'd never played a golf game until Hot Shots Golf 3. This review will show my lack of knowledge about the sport, and will contain no comparisons to Swing Away Golf, Tiger Woods 2002, Tee Off Golf, or even the first two Hot Shots games, because I've never spent one second playing any of them. In fact, being Golf Ignoramus #1, I may seem like the least qualified person in the universe to review this game.
However, HSG3 is not a golf game just for golf-heads. It is fun, pure and simple - in fact, it's the most fun I've had with a game since Samba de Amigo and Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast. HSG3 is one of only two games I've ever pre-ordered; even now I'm really perplexed about what attracted me to it. I was positive the game would be a winner.
Lucky for me, I was right. HSG3 makes golf fun and easy to play, yet contains enough depth to keep it from being silly. It's a fantastic multiplayer game as well - my similarly golf-ignorant friends got involved immediately. We now consider it a multiplayer classic.
First off, the game is gorgeous to look at. The characters have goofy, oversized heads, and behave in bizarre, endearing ways. They'll do backflips when you get a birdy, and will even line-dance with some frogs. The game is full of visual whimsy: a rainbow trail follows the ball on an accurate stroke, your caddy kicks up a puff of dust as he takes off after the ball, and the golf ball will even burst into flames on certain occasions. The true stars of the game are the courses: lush, detail-filled marvels that are just magnificent. I was actually disappointed my character couldn't hop in the golf cart and take a leisurely tour of the course, drinking in the grassy, rolling hills, the swaying trees, butterflies, falling leaves, rippling pools, and the glorious sunset. You might see a windmill turning lazily in the distance, or a train chugging along a winding track. You'll hear buzzing insects, soft gusts of wind...and your caddie's grating comments when you launch one into the rough. The courses vary from a tropical island to a desert canyon, and each has its own treasures and obstacles. You can play each course in any season, at different times of day, or with different weather conditions. Not only does each detail provide an additional feast for the eyes, but each affects the gameplay directly.
Ah, the gameplay. HSG3 uses a three-click and meter system to measure your swing: hit the button once to start the meter, again to measure power, and once more for timing. You can also used the d-pad to target your swing for slice purposes. It's ridiculously easy to do, but can get very complex, as you'll have to pay attention to the slope of the course, the wind condition, which club would be best, and of course you'll have to avoid sand traps and water. Putting is also easy: a grid appears over the green showing slope and speed, and you tap the button once to start the meter and again to measure power. A randomly placed pin practically guarantees you won't play the same hole twice. "Easy to get into, difficult to master" is a gaming cliche, but it fits HSG3 perfectly.
There are several single-player modes to choose from, including Practice, Stroke, Tournament, and Vs. You accumulate Hot Shots Points in these modes, which can then be used in the Shop to buy items ranging from new clubs and balls to caddies. Trust me - you'll revisit the courses many times in order to rack up additional points. You play against the CPU in Vs. mode, and if you win, you unlock additional characters with improved performance stats. There's also an interesting internet mode, which ranks your best games against players nationwide.
Multiplayer is a joy. One of the best features is that you can use one controller for up to four people - no multitap needed! You can play one hole or compare your scores over a series. Fiendishly addictive, and it can get pretty competitive!!
Hot Shots is golf for the anti-golfer. Despite having a total lack of interest in the sport, I got into the game right away. It takes the somewhat slow-paced and dry game of golf and makes it appealing and fun. HSG3 is a game you and your friends will replay many times, whether to improve your scores, purchase all the items, bask in the beauty of the courses, or to have a simple good time. Ignore the golf-ish exterior and give it a chance. I think you'll get hooked, unless you're dead-set against having fun.
More of the same from 1 and (I guess)2... more, so MUCH more
I don't understand myself. I've never played golf on a course, and I don't really care to start, but I'm a sucker for video game golf. So, many moons ago, I happily tucked Hot Shots Golf (the PSX original) into my collection of epileptic-seizure-inducing-titanic-explosion-giant-robot-espionage-assault-blast-fests and played the heck out of it. I never got #2 but I really dug #1. I truly loved gathering points to unlock all the courses, and prided myself on my eventual learned ability to beat each computer player. It was a unique video game experience in that I wasn't just figuring out how to use the program's quirks against it, how to cheat some line of AI code into trapping itself into a no-win situation and then blasting away at it, no-- I was learning the ins, outs, ups and downs of How to Play Golf. I learned how to read the lie of the green, how to play with or against the wind for a few more yards or a little less roll. I felt like I was actually accomplishing something while I sat ...in my living room. As if I was somehow preparing myself for the original white-man retirement inevitability-- a bag full of clubs on a 12-pack Sunday.
Happily, I report I have collected no such affectation yet. No, in these darkening days of the twilight of my youth I can only claim to have a similar, but far less tiring and expensive new hobby-- I sit ...in my barracks room and play the crap out of Hot Shots Golf 3.
No, seriously-- I can't put this thing down. I even popped out Deus Ex, a totally engaging CRPG like nothing else out there, and left it gathering dust for a WEEK because I can't stop laughing at that idiot Mel every time I birdie and he croons out "Bird's a-chirpin'!" like he's blissfully gassy from a 3-piece chicken combo. I love the Shop, I almost choked on a cookie when I pummeled the little glasses girl like Ken Clean-Air System and heard her blubber "You're Mean" on the score card screen, I spend all kinds of time on the desert course looking for that stupid yet oh-so-cute butterfly I unlocked with Capsule number one for a whopping 2900 points just because I can say "That butterfly is MINE!" with a tear in my eye, people, with a tear in my eye... Bird's a-chirpin'.
And oh yeah, the game... It's the first Hot Shots! All over again! With more everything and then some, Praise Bog! There's more finesse over the ball with the Big Air and Pinhole clubs that YOU GOTTA BUY, giving you an even GREATER sense of accomplishment because THOSE CLUBS are YOUR CHILDREN, you SWEATED and TOILED and TRIED LIKE MAD to birdie or par on that rotten Hawaiian Par 3 that goes over the beach just to have them-- because you knew HOW MUCH MORE FUN you were going to have and HOW MANY MORE RECORDS you were going to set and HOW MANY MORE GREAT chip-in videos you would be able to show your friends, who were gonna be so jealous because they were CLEARLY the more inferior Hot Shots Golfers! AHH HA HA HA!!!
The physics are 99% brilliant. I question some of the wierd ball dynamics when they screw me into a sand trap or (GULP!) water hazard, but what do I know-- I don't play the real thing. Stuff happens in the real world, ya know? I still feel like I learned a ton from the first game because I still understand both the basics of golf and the PS2 controller scheme, which hasn't changed much (but where's the wind velocity and vector grass-toss? Oh well). It's intuitive and simple yet tricky. And full of options, the way I like it. I'm Tiger Woods!
The save system is VASTLY improved if only for the fact that I don't have to wait for my Scotch and soda at the 9th hole bar in order to make a pit stop from which to keep creaming my wily opponent in Vs. mode-- I can save EVERY hole when I'm up, and go back to 5 or 10 or whatever I have to do when that miserable par 5 drops me out of bounds again... and again... and again when I'm going for a green-in-2 Eagle attempt. The only thing that burns me up at all about this game is a problem I had in HSG1, namely that it seems like when I save my interrupt data in the same slot over and over, the game will eventually lock up on a certain hole every time I get there. But, annoying as we all know THAT is, I can't get mad at it. I'm too relaxed 10 minutes later when I've whipped the pants off of the Sasquatch and am kicking back with some new wallpapers to show for it all. And a tournament trophy with a little golf-guy on it.
I love it.
This game is a quiet, relaxing, enjoyable, challenging contest of wits between you and Newton up to 4 friends which will make you smile all day long. Hey, wait a sec-- Is that the secret of real golf as well? I gotta go outside more...
Bird's a-chirpin'...
wow! Great game!
I've tried several golf games over the years, on each of the systems I've owned (NES, SNES, PSX, PS2). I've also played a couple of different golf games on the PC. While the golf physics have been fairly consistent throughout the years, one thing most of the games have lacked is a "fun factor". After one or two rounds of 18, most golf games have lost the replay value. One factor for this happening was that it took so long to complete a round of golf.
Hot Shots Golf has changed this. The game is simply fun. One advantage is how fast paced the game is. A round of 18 in tournament mode takes only about a half hour to play (think about that....2 minutes or less per hole), but you still have to exercise skill in hitting the shots well. You will also have to do some thinking in re-aiming some shots, reading the green, and attempting to chip the ball in. As you win tournaments, you earn special prizes. Prizes include a new set of clubs (with different abilities, one grants you extra distance while sacrificing impact ability), new golf balls, new caddies. If you play in VS mode, if you beat the opponent, that character is unlocked and is now playable. Each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and some are clearly better than others.
There are two drawbacks that I can think of. One: The character design is horrible. The character look so hokey. Two: after the 10th hole in tournament mode (at least on the first course) the game may lock up. My advise would be to save your game after hole 9 (if you're having a good round and don't want to lose it) and if resume play if it locks up. It is annoying, but other than the first day I played the game, I haven't had the problem. It's something to watch out for.
I haven't had this much fun playing a golf game ever. It is very easy to pick up and start playing fairly well, but difficult to master completely. Well worth the money.
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