The Wii has been out in Europe now for nearly 2 years, since then the little white box has found its way into many, MANY homes due to the insane popularity of games such as Wii Sports, Zelda and other 1st and 3rd party titles. In that time many sports franchises (mainly owned by EA!) have tried to beat the great pick up and play gameplay that has made Wii Sports the king of parties and drunken nights with friends. Can King of Clubs replicate its high class gameplay or is it a bogey?

King of Clubs has a loose story set around a few guys in the desert playing golf…that’s pretty much it and in honesty I’m unsure why they put the idea in as this would work the same without it. After a short but funny intro sequence you are greeted by one of the first truly different golf experiences on the Wii. Rather than having the full golf courses featured in golf games such as Tiger Woods and Super Swing Golf, King of Clubs focuses on more of a fun approach to golf with several themed miniature golf courses. With close to 100 different holes, each with their own tricks and secrets, you really cant sniff at the amount of play time on offer.

Matching the large amount of courses is the large amount of customization you can have, with clubs, balls, tints, sound effects, characters and a fair bit more all to buy or unlock through campaign and tournament modes to use in multiplayer and single player. There is plenty for you to do and customize in the game, and that’s part of the problem..

You see where the game has oodles of content it unfortunately doesn’t have great controls. Having a similar control mechanic to both Wii Sports and Super Swing Golf, it’s a big shame that the controls don’t better or equal either title with the Wiimotes sensing all of the place, at times it makes it extremely hard to get the shot your looking for not to mention when trying to hit a light putt 9 times out of 10 the game just refuses to let it happen. the controls never made me feel in complete control, that’s not good for any game but for a game where motion is key, it could almost be fatal.

Graphically King of Clubs sticks firmly in the middle ground of Wii games, just shy of being either a good looking game or an ugly duckling. Each character is designed nicely and has a very distinctive feel to them, much like the stages. At times the game can look fairly impressive, with various different themed levels all showing some flair, its just unfortunate that this doesn’t hold up all the time with bouts of what feels like lag slowing down on the bigger more complex courses.

The presentation of the sound is similar to that of the graphics. More middle ground. While the sound effects of the stages, characters and items all add to the quirky nature of the game, repeated background music will be the bane of the your enjoyment. I mean it as no joke when I say one of the best qualities of the soundtrack is that you can turn it off.

Closing Comments

King of Clubs is the picture perfect middle ground game, just being short of a recommendation because of its flawed controls. Taking the graphics, sound and customization into account this game could have been so much more if a little more TLC and time were put into it. If you fancy another casual party game to add to your collection you could do far worse than this. But eventually you’ll go back to Wii Sports or Super Swing Golf just because they are that little bit better.

Overall Score - 6.0

+ Mini Golf is good
+ great amount of customization
+ Low price point

- Poor controls
- Badly designed UI
- Repetitive gameplay