![]() The visceral response typically follows a chain of oohs, ahs, gasps, exclamations and groans as your balls sails through the air, glides down to the green and then unceremoniously trundles past the hole, mere inches off target. The anguish of anticipation is dialed up to ten as you watch helplessly to see if you’re lucky/skilled enough to land and roll into the hole from afar. Nowhere is this more acutely felt than when you land on a green close enough to the hole that the camera switches to an ultra zoomed in view. In fact, there’s just as much tension and release in the parts you have zero control over. ![]() There’s a strong emotional connection to the action throughout Everybody’s Golf, not just in that shot meter. Still, it’s a pretty cool relic of the past and I think it’s pretty neat that Sony and Clap Hanz developed an entirely separate, portable golf game in addition to the main event. Weirdly, it also came to PS Vita in 2013 when Sony released an official emulator, compatible with its PSOne Classics line, but this was Japan-only too. I don’t have a Japanese copy of the game, or a PockeStation, so I doubt I’ll ever get to try this primitive little golf game. Intermission… The Japanese version of Everybody’s Golf 2 came with a bonus ability to download a mini golf game to the PockeStation accessory – Sony’s answer to the Dreamcast VMU, which functioned as both a memory card and tiny monochrome handheld. But the meat of the game is right there in that power meter, and when you nail a perfect shot, my god does it feel good. The distance of the shot, the type and shape of the terrain you’re likely to land on, the wind (god damn it, the wind) and all of these factors make every single shot a puzzle and skill test all of its own. Of course, there are always other factors to take into account. It’s a system that anyone can learn in just a few seconds but there’s just enough challenge in there that even the most seasoned players will need to stay alert to master it. It just makes total sense… Press a single button to stop the power meter as close to the desired power level as you can, and then as the marker swiftly returns back to the start of the meter, hit that same button again to try and hit the sweet spot and strike the ball with accuracy as well as oomph. Now I can’t say for sure which videogame was the first to implement the power meter swing mechanic that’s become so commonplace over the decades, but I feel like Everybody’s Golf and Mario Golf at least popularised it, and rightly so. In the PlayStation age, when the advance of 3D graphics pushed most golf games further into simulation, Everybody’s Golf remained true to its name with presentation and mechanics that could appeal to a wide range of people.
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