- Xbox One / Rated E / $19.99 / released November 2013
- OFFICIAL SITE: xbox.com
- FINAL: You NEED this game. 5 out of 5 stars
When one thinks of a new console from Microsoft, they immediately think of titles like “Call of Duty,” “Battlefield 4” or other first person shooter titles that the Xbox brand has become associated with over the years. So imagine my surprise when I found that a little downloadable golf title would end up stealing the show for my Xbox One experience.
“Powerstar Golf” takes the game of golf and transforms it into a social experience, injecting a sense of humor into a game that is normally considered stodgy and overburdened with archaic rules. Here, the rule of thumb is to make things fun and easy to jump into with a group of friends. Up to four players can join into a round of golf, picking from several over-the-top golfers, complete with their own skills and power-ups. Some make zeroing in on the hole a lot easier, while others smack the ball off the tee with a power boost.
“Powerstar Golf” does all it can to make things entertaining for those at the top of the leaderboard as well as those sitting in last place. Challenges come left and right, rewarding those that can hit the next fairway in regulation, or make par on the next three holes. While there are not many variations of these challenges, they do spice things up for those that are looking to help boost their levels.
As with most parts of the game, the golfers in “Powerstar Golf” are very animated, and have very nice animations for playing the course, although their dialogue options become very repetitive. Hearing the same phrase for the fiftieth time can grate on your nerves.
Sadly, “Powerstar Golf” does not have a dedicated online mode, instead allowing players to play against the best rounds of their friends. These rounds can be selected either by their best performance overall, or by their best performance of the week. And if you are somehow lacking friends that own “Powerstar Golf,” you can still select players from the general leaderboard to play against.
While the presentation and actual golf game in “Powerstar Golf” are fun, it suffers from one huge fault – a lack of courses. While it seems like there are a variety of courses to play on, you soon find out that they are just selection of holes from a single course. There are actually only a small handful of courses overall. Sure, more could be on their way via DLC, but it would have been nice to add one or two more to the base package.
Even with that issue, “Powerstar Golf” has found its way to the top of my rotation with its charm… and it delivers a fun game of golf. It will win no awards for authenticity with the golf crowd, but it is a great title to sit down with a few friends and drive out a few rounds in-between sessions of first person shooting.