Hot Shots Golf Comes to NGP with 50 Player Support

Hot Shots Golf for the NGP is everything you love about the series with some smart additions that lean heavily on the portable’s special capabilities.

I had a chance to check the toonish golfing game out last month and really loved what I saw. The first think I noticed when I picked the game up was the high-resolution graphics, powered by a more robust graphics engine that makes the courses and characters pop.

Standing at the tee, you can look around by moving the NGP around as if you were looking through it. Once you’re ready to golf you just tap where you want to stand to place the tee and take your first swing. You aim by touching on the screen. As you move your finger around the screen, the clubs automatically change for you, or you can manually change clubs with the NGP’s shoulder buttons. Tapping on your character makes him or her look up at you.

A new shot system uses three button pushes to nail the distance and precision of your shot. I was told that the developers may also tweak the game to make use of the device’s built-in motion detection to enhance shots. Already the game allows you to tilt the device to sort of nudge the ball a bit when it’s in play.

Once you sink the ball the device automatically snaps a picture of you to share.

The game, I was told, will support both Wifi and 3G online play as well as future downloadable content, like new courses, characters and costumes. There will also be a new “LiveArea” mode that allows you to “join and interact with 50 players for a round of golf.” But I didn’t see that in action.

Hot Shots Golf looks like a great game for fans of the series, and of the NGP.