Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational

Like I said, the addictive quality of Hot Shots Golf is here in full force. It's a perfect game for travelling because you can knock out a 9-hole challenge in no time, and there's always new items in the shop that drives you play just one more round. Absolutely a great Hot Shots game, and absolutely a great game to pick up with your PS Vita.

I think a little more could've been done; a little more in the way of innovation and freshness. Because even a die-hard follower like me felt a touch a ho-hum going through the events.

Everybody's Golf is another addictive installment in the lucky franchise and one of the best launch games for PlayStation Vita. It packs a lot of content in single and multiplayer modes; however it doesn't fully support most of Vita's hardware features and it shows a somewhat lack of creativity with its recycled playfields and visuals.

Look past certain design flaws - and certain mechanical issues – however, and you'll find a highly enjoyable, highly addictive golf game that's accessible to all types of player, from the kid in the back seat during a car ride to the most dedicated gamer.

It's easy to learn, hard to master, addictive and beautiful. Simply put, it's one of the best buys a PSVita owner could make.

It's one of the strongest launch titles, offering taut fun and challenge in a rapid-fire, quick-load manner that's perfectly suited to the handheld. It may not offer a vision of the portable future that Sony's creative dreamers were hoping for, but as a video game, it works small wonders.

The customisation options are the main focus in this portable golf game, but apart from that the game treads on very familiar ground. I'd hold out for an inevitable Tiger Woods game if I were you.

I have been playing golf games since the 90's and if the game is good I am incredible addicted to it. This is my personal favorite golf game of all time. I think it is the best in the series of Hot Shots games and I have played them all for many hours upon hours. I never was a huge fan of the Tiger Woods series because the physics didn't seem realistic to me, especially the putting. I enjoy the challenge of golf games because the real game is a true pain in the butt. To be able to use my knowledge of studying the greens/slopes from playing real golf and to see the physics play out in a realistic fashion is something that excites me. The online community is alive and nearly 1000 players participate in the daily tournaments everyday. I haven't missed many since I bought this game and I have enjoyed every round.

This game has everything that a golf game should have. Almost no bugs, great graphics, amazing online features, tons of things to unlock, challenging courses and much much more! I would recommend this game to everyone who likes golf!

I wanted to like this game so much. I was a big fan of Hot Shots Golf: Fore! on the Playstation 2 and I was excited to play Hot Shots on the go. The game is fun up to a point, then quickly becomes extremely frustrating and challenging, with slight miscalculations leading to major failure. For a game that comes off looking like a casual game, the difficulty does not ramp up nicely and prevents me from wanting to play the game any more. While I did enjoy being challenged, losing against the same character several times in a row has caused me to give up on the game.

I have mixed feelings about this incarnation of Everybody's Golf (The EU title of the game). I have both 1 & 2 on the PSP and I think I might've been expecting more from the Vita version than what appeared. The characters are more detailed and crisp, but the graphics for the courses don't really seem to take advantage of the Vita's graphical ability and still has a PSP feel about **** content itself is very good, with lots to unlock and play. In single player the game runs along smoothly and is everything you would expect from this franchise. However, the thorn in it's side is the online multiplayer. Sure, the leaderboards and daily competitions that you play on your own are fine, but the actual multiplayer part is extremely slow and laborious. Every player in the tourney gets a set amount of time to complete each hole, and that's fine, but the big problem is that pretty much all of the time everyone in the game has completed a hole in good time, and you are all left sitting waiting for the next hole to start for maybe up to 1 minute every time, which soon adds up. The game needs a Ready button, or a termination of the countdown once all players have finished the hole. 9 holes simply takes too long, and 18 holes is severely tedious, even for a 40+ year old fart like me. Still, I write this review just a week or two into its release, and with the vita being more "update and patch" friendly than the PSP was, I'm hoping it might improve over time.

The game looks great, character models are expressive and detailed. The courses are buzzing with activity from chooks to crop harvesters to wind farms, but this can make the courses feel cluttered and quite difficult to get around (who puts a three storey bail of hay on a golf course?). The game doesnt really have a "career mode", but it does have a series of tournaments and one on one challenges that can be played with the stock characters. Unfortunately the difficulty eventually swings way up after a few hours of play and becomes almost impossible to advance without a lot of brute force attempts or a strong dedication to getting better at the game. This changes the feel of the game from something that was addictive and fun to something frustrating and non-inclusive. The easy mode that becomes available after you lose a bunch of times can hold back opponent scores while on the course, but that didnt seem to make any difference at all. Applying spin to the ball is fidly and not as fun as the Tiger Woods way of just tapping the x button and pointing the analog stick in the direction you want it to go. The inability to create your own character and level up his stats is unfortunate. What could have been a truly perfect golf game is soured mostly by its uncompromising difficulty curve. A beginner option for the inexperienced who just want to see the game and all of its courses and higher difficulty settings for those who want more of a challenge would have been warmly welcomed. Dark souls golf isnt much fun.