Introduction
Have you ever been golfing and get so frustrated you wanted to punch someone in the face, possibly your caddy? Outlaw Golf, from Simon and Schuster Interactive, brings you the pleasure of beating the life out of your caddy in order to get good, and it also brings you the fun of a golf game. This game was released earlier in the year, debuting on the Xbox, and if you’re like me and don’t own an Xbox, you still may have had interest in the title. Gamecube owners now have the option of slapping some caddies and hammering’ a hole in one.

Gameplay
The sound of Outlaw Golf is generic and really doesn’t have much to offer. The announcer is very annoying and repetitive, but that’s forgivable, because the game wants to be an arcade title. The announcer will try to be witty and comical, but it just results in cheesiness. Although, at the beginning of each round, he gives a pretty funny description of the golfers and caddies participating in the round, so I guess you can give the creators a little bit of points for the dialogue (in some areas anyway). The golfers will spurt out a few phrases here and there, but it is really nothing special. It may be a bit comical at first, but it’s really new after hearing the limited phrases. The crowd, on the other hand, is funny even though repetitious. If you miss a short putt or even a normal shot, you’ll hear someone in the crowd roar with laughter, it’s really a treat. In multi-play, you can control what the crowd does while your opponent shots, like shouting out “MISS” during a key putt. Other than the announcer and little excerpts by the golfers and comical crowd, the rest of the game sounds like you’re on a golf course. The swing of the club, the contact of the ball, and everything sound good enough for the game. The ball’s lie also sounds as if it were being struck from a sand trap, or rolling into a pound, and even bouncing up on a green. The ball also sounds as if it’s actually going into the cup when sinking a put. I don’t mind the sound of Outlaw Golf, it just gets a little annoying having to listen to that announcer continually, shut him off if you get too annoyed. When its all said and done, the good outweigh the bad just barely enough to make the sound efficient, and without the announcer it would have been even better.

Fun
While playing multi-player, you can find yourself taking quite some time choosing which mode to play your friend in. There are several to chose from, which range from stroke play, to match play, to skins play, to one and only play. In stroke play, you play your opponent and the lowest score wins the game after 18 holes. In match play, you play each hole individually and the winner of the most holes wins the game after 18 holes, or if you’ve won too many holes for the opponent to surmount a comeback. Skins play is playing per hole for a prize purse. At the end of 18 holes, the guy with the most cash wins, simple as that. In another variety of skins play, you can play wager golf, where you can wager an amount of money on specific shots, raising the hole’s purse with the winner of the hole getting the money. One and Only play is where you choose one club and a putter and play an 18-round golf using only that club and your putter. It’s something my friends and I have actually done in real life, so I find it cool to be able to do it in a game. There are also team best ball and team scramble modes. Team best ball allows you to choose the best shot of the players on your team and play that ball from where it lies. In team scramble, you alternate shots with your teammates, so if one guy makes a bad shot, the next will have to make something out of the terrible position he’s been put into, thanks to the unfortunate disability of the previous player. With all these modes to play in multi-player, you’re going to have a lot of fun with your friends, as long as you don’t mind only choosing from three courses, or tire from unlocking all the golfers and clubs. If you want to skip around that, here’s a bonus cheat I’m offering for you readers out there. Enter Golf_Gone_Wild as your name when you begin a new career at the beginning of Outlaw golf. It will also be your save name, so if you have a legit one going, it won’t be hard to tell the two apart.

Story
The graphics are pretty good, the characters are nicely rendered and the courses look rather pleasurable. The grass looks nice, the greens look good and everything in between is put together satisfactorily. It is sometimes hard to determine the difference between the rough and the fairway, but that’s only in a few instances. The sand traps, the water hazards and the greens all look like life and interact realistically with you’re ball’s lie. The comedy of the game is not necessarily in the game play but in the animations and design of the characters you chose to be and their caddies. There are a handful of characters to begin with (4) and plenty more to unlock (6), ranging from a stripper (Summer), a trailer-park biker chick (Harley), a white rapper(Ice Trey) and many more, each looking as hilarious as the next. The caddies are funny too, as the animations of them getting beat down is classic and it does not take away from the game’s environment. You can really get a liking to some characters, as well as a hating towards the caddy at the same time. You’re really going to enjoy the zany visuals of the characters, as well as the environments of the courses, everything is put together nicely and really gives you a good feel for Outlaw Golf, including the turnpike on Hole 1 of Turnpike Valley.

Graphics
Outlaw’s game play is very good, and very easy to learn. You may think about staying away from this title because it tries to sell itself as a wacky arcade game, but that’s not the case, beneath the hilarious characters is a great playing golf engine. The game doesn’t try to wow with complicating options, it let’s you do what you should be able to do, put the ball in play. The swing meter is very easy to use and really takes advantage of the GC controller’s C-Stick, which is the best stick to use when direction and swinging your club. Before you shoot, the C-Stick also functions well to put spin on the ball, as you just press it up or down to determine your spin. There’s no need for holding down anything while in mid swing to execute spin on your ball, it’s all predetermined before hand. To hit your ball, you pull down on the C-Stick and press up at the desired power level, simple right? Right, but if you sway the stick to the left or right, you may end up with a nasty slice or hook. The very basic-ness of this control scheme is perfect for a golf game, and really fits this one particularly well with the Cube’s controller. Don’t be afraid of this game as being an arcade masher, as it is only a golf game with a caddy beat ‘em up feature. You earn your beat ‘em tokens by playing well, and keeping your composure. When you activate a token, a bar comes up and you see your player and caddie standing with one another. As you press the A button, the cursor begins to move and you must press A at the corresponding time to land your shots. The meter used is like the Hot Shots Golf swing meter and is very easy, but sometimes frustrating, to land your shots in. As you pummel your caddy, your composure meter increases and your shots become more and more forgiving as your composure increases. Scoring birdies and pars will also attribute to your meter, but faltering by hitting shots into the rough, the sand, or water will bring your meter back down to earth. Scoring bogies, double bogies and higher will also earn you’re a composure a trip towards “In the tank” and you’re golf game will increase in difficulty, as your shots become less and less forgiving and the slightest errors will cause falter, making it hard to amount a comeback. All in all, the game play in Outlaw Golf is worthy of the game’s play alone.

Sound
Outlaw Golf offers a wide variety of game modes and an extensive amount of characters to choose from, when you get them unlocked. Having to unlock the multiple golfers will take you some time, and you may find it worth it in the long haul. However, due to the lack of variety of courses (3), you may tire a bit too quickly from this game. Thankfully, the added game play modes may be enough to keep you and some friends happy enough to continue playing when you have the majority of golfers unlocked. If you enter a career with a golfer, you enter tournaments, driving contest and putting competitions. The tournaments offer up a pretty good challenge, as the leader board always seems to hover around your score. The competition gets pretty fierce when making the drive in the later stages of your tour. The putting and driving challenges are neat at first, but get tiring after you play one or two of them. It’s a nice feature to have thrown in there, and there aren’t too difficult of challenges to unlock the new clubs, balls and putters available. It’s really worth getting the new items, because they boost your game considerably, so suck it up and get some clubs.

Conclusion
In conclusion, if you’re a Cube owner, and you’re looking for a good golf game, take a look at Outlaw Golf. The GameCube doesn’t have many golf games to offer, and you may end up enjoying this one the most of the bunch, depending on your preferences. If you have golf fan friends, you may want to give them a call to enjoy this game to its fullest.