Zany Golf
System: Genesis
Release Date: November 1990
Developer: Sandcastle Productions
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Sports
It’s mini golf, but it can’t just be that, so let’s play some Zany Golf! Electronic Arts is back with another PC port that is… well… not the most tuned game for the system. You have nine holes that you are going to be figuring out the angles for in order to score as low as possible.
The holes range from typical mini golf fare to unrealistic craziness. Most holes have a gimmick to them. Like a pinball table where you need to hit the drop targets before the hole opens. Or the hole where you need to rotate the d-pad in order to power fans to blow you in the correct direction. There’s the hole with a moving target on top of a hill. Maybe you need to press Button A rapidly to bounce a hamburger to uncover the hole. Then the final hole is a huge mess where you need to avoid ball destroying obstacles while hitting buttons and then avoiding fake holes to hit the real one.
On most levels, you can place your ball on one of a few spots by moving the cursor where you want it and pressing Button A. (21:30) To hit your ball, press and hold Button A when the cursor is on top of the ball. Then pull back in the opposite direction of where you want the ball to go. The farther you pull the cursor back, the harder you hit the ball. Hopefully you’re good at hitting the right angle to put the ball where you want it. You have a set amount of strokes shown in the upper right corner and when that falls to zero, your game is over.
To send you off today, here’s a cavalcade of my hole in one shots.
Graphics: 1.5
The graphics are interesting, but the frame rate is far too low and the perspective is not intuitive.
Sound: 1.5
I don’t have the proper words to describe the audio. It sounds like it comes from a crappy late 80s computer MIDI synthesizer. Some people might find enjoyment, but I’m not a big fan.
Gameplay: 2.0
Set your angle and power by pulling the cursor and hope you got it right.
Difficulty: 2.0
Play through a couple times and you’ll have most of the holes mastered.
Fun Factor: 1.0
I didn’t have a great time doing it, though.
Overall Rating: 1.6
Zany Golf earns a C-. I couldn’t find a manual anywhere online for this game, so if you have one, maybe contribute a scan to SegaRetro. Otherwise, don’t feel like you need to bother.