John Daly’s ProStroke Golf

So a golfing game for the PlayStation Move, who would have thought it! Golf on the Wii was great fun, but can Move recreate this? This Move version is a slightly more serious take on the game of golf than Wii Sports, but this is in line with the PlayStation 3 being the more serious console.

Luckily, where this game excels is in the use of the Move controller; it accurately recreates your swing in the game, meaning that the correct technique will be rewarded with a good 300+ yard drive down the fairway while a poor swing will have it slicing off to the side and likely hitting a bunker.

The game being sensitive to the correct swing does unfortunately mean that if you have never picked up a club before you will suffer from a very steep learning curve. The game won’t help you much either, just giving you some tutorial videos to watch that are both long and tiresome as you listen to John Daly going on and on about how to add draw and fade and all that jazz. ‘Pick up and play’ this is not.

Basic things like a sound track are nonexistent, and the game world is filled with very little noise apart from a bee buzzing or a jet flying over head. The commentary is over-negative, constantly suggesting that your drive was awful even if you hit it 300 yards, which I would say is pretty good. Graphics are no better – the courses are alright, but lack any real feel of life and have no texture; they definitely don’t compete with EA’s _Tiger Woods PGA Tour_.

In terms of game modes, there are just your very basics: match play/stroke play career, online and quick play. Most time will be spent on the ‘career’, in which all you do is complete some really difficult challenges against John Daly himself in order to unlock a tournament, or in my case fail them enough times that he lets you pretend you completed it. There is very little variation at all and definitely no way you could call it a career.

This game may not look good, and from reading the above you may think it should be completely avoided, but it does have its place. The graphics and sound are dull, but the actual game play is very good and I cannot help but feel if they had spent a little bit more time polishing the graphics and sound etc. then this would be close to competing with Tiger Woods. However, in its current form I cannot see it drawing anyone away from the long-standing leader in the genre. As it is, this is a great simulation of the game of golf that is rewarding at times, but for non-golfers the learning curve will likely prevent you going back for another go. Compared to other Move games it’s pretty good, and therefore I would expect it to get a reasonable number of sales simply due to people wanting to get worth out of their investment in the very under-mature PlayStation Move.