The Everybody’s Golf series has always wonderfully wedged charm and vibrancy into an activity traditionally orientated around the dour tastes of loafer-wearing retirees. If only real-life golf featured disturbingly attractive players with massive hands, shorts skirts and inhumanly fast caddies. It would be fantastic, and Play would happily throw its support behind any shadowy genetic experiment with such a goal in mind.

Despite Everybody’s Golf 5 (or Minna No Golf 5 as it’s called in Japan) being developer Clap Hanz’s first PS3 outing, the game looks, visually, like it was made by console veterans. Its graphics may not be retinablazing, we’re not talking bloom lighting or photorealism, but they’re designed with such charm and colour that each animation converges to form a game world dripping with eccentric and cheery optimism, without a hint of slowdown or sluggishness. Courses pulsate with vitality, animals scurry into bushes, leaves streak across the green and spectators and camera crews amble around with comic gestures. It’s quite an achievement in terms of artistic direction, considering the creative restrictions dictated by a sport as button-downed as golf.

Who wants to play as an emotionless Tiger Woods when you can tread through the rough as a cocksure-teenaged cowboy, or a coquettish, mini-skirted vixen? Each of the 15 anime-style characters in Everybody’s Golf 5 has a satisfyingly chunky on-screen presence and their own distinct personality, delightfully conveyed through an assortment of glib remarks and endearing gestures. We found ourselves selecting our golfer based on their mannerisms rather than their actual stats. Compare them to the uninspired and crass stooges from the Outlaw Golf series, and you can immediately appreciate how much talent Clap Hanz has for imbuing its simple characters with such likeable personas.

The import version of Everybody’s Golf 5 cuts down on the play modes that its predecessor, Everybody’s Golf 4, offered. Instead of versus and tournament modes, we’re given Challenge mode, in which the player works their way through numerous tournaments on the same course. Winning each tournament unlocks a prize for your character, be it a new outfit, a new set of clubs or an extra caddy. After you complete three quarters of the tournaments on a given course, you’ll be able to go headto- head with a new character. Win the headto- head and the character is yours to control, and eventually the course will be available to play on the Training and Match Play modes.

There are six different courses in total, all of which are pleasingly varied, though we did expect slightly more choice. However, you will have to complete quite a few tournaments on each of them before you get an opportunity to square up to a boss character, making the single-player game quite a slog to get through. And if you’re an obsessive collector you’ll certainly have your work cut out trying to unlock all of the different costumes, balls, clubs and caddies.

Apart from the updated graphics, the biggest change Clap Hanz has made to the series is the addition of a new control system. One button tap instigates your golfer’s swing. You then tap the button a second time to determine the power of the shot, but, instead of using a power bar to gauge this, you have to judge it from the height of the club; the higher it is the more powerful the shot will be. Then, as the club swings downwards, a white circle contracts around the ball. How close the circle is to the ball when you tap the button for a third time determines your shot’s accuracy. The old yellow power meter that faithfully served us throughout previous versions is still available, but we think the new method is far more intuitive, and it takes barely a few swings before you get used to the timing.

However, apart from updated graphics and a tweaked control system, Everybody’s Golf 5 contributes little to the series as a whole, and many of the features from Everybody’s Golf 4 are conspicuously absent. For instance, there is little opportunity to mix and match outfits and far fewer modes and courses are available. The multiplayer is also in a bit of a state (see The Club House boxout), with no voice chat and no way of setting up your own game. Much of this, we believe, was down to pressure exerted on Clap Hanz to release Everybody’s Golf 5 as soon as possible in Japan, in order to boost PS3 sales in that territory. We’re not saying the game is unfinished, but we recommend waiting for the European or American release (which we were vaguely told is sometime next year), as it is expected that us Westerners will be gifted with extra content and hopefully a more refined online experience.

Christopher Reynolds