Unlike many other types of sport titles on the Wii, golf appears to be quite popular with developers and gamers alike. With titles like Tiger Woods from EA, Pangya Golf from Tecmo and King of Clubs from Oxygen, Golf fans have a lot to choose from on their white waggle wonders. Well now, Capcom wishes to spoil you even more with another option to choose from with We Love Golf.

We Love Golf is developed by Camelot. Name sound familiar? It should do, Camelot developed the Mario Golf games on the N64 and Gamecube a few years ago and now are working with Capcom to provide We Love Golf, a bright, cheerful and fun take on a game where old men walk around in white trousers.

While they can’t improve the old men and white trousers, they have really taken the formula from Mario Golf and implemented in an impressive way all while making the controls seem natural and effective. Like Mario Golf, We Love Golf uses a power bar at the bottom of the screen which works on timing your shots and measuring your power. You simply point the Wiimote down, hold down A and pull the Wiimote back like a golf club, once the power bar is high enough a marker will go back down the bar and when it reaches the bottom you swing. The controls really are some of the best in any golf game on the Wii and so far are my preferred control method.

Unfortunately, some casual players may not feel the same way. While I think the controls are brilliant with timing and reflex playing large parts in how good my swing is, when the AcidCrashX family plays a few rounds on Wii Sports golf on a Friday night, mother ACX and girlfriend ACX struggle getting the power correct in their own time, let alone trying to do it on We love Golf where you have to measure everything within the space of 2 seconds. I can see some casual players really getting frustrated with the control scheme and wonder if Camelot should have put in a more casual focused control scheme as an extra.

Its possible Camelot didn’t have enough time to add a extra control scheme, and you can see that they’ve put effort in other areas when you take a look at the amount of content bursting out of the game with 4 characters at the start, each with 8 different outfits, and more characters unlockable as you progress who can all be used in the 7 different single player modes like Character Match, Stroke Play, Ring Shot, Target Gold and Tournament, the latter being the bulk of the single player.

One of the best little features of We Love Golf is the unlockable outfits for each character which come in a variety of colours, but the best bit is dressing up like one of your favourite Capcom characters such as Zack from Zack & Wiki, Ryu, Ken, Guile or Chun-Li from street fighter and even Apollo Justice or Maya from the Ace Attorney series. It really adds that little extra bit of game nostalgia when playing which makes it so much fun each time.

These outfits can be used in Multiplayer too or alternatively use Mii’s as one of the 4 player characters with a choice of bodies to put the Mii’s head on (sounds a little sadistic but it really isn’t), its a bit of a shame not to mention, extremely odd that only the first 10 or so Mii’s on the console can be used. Multiplayer is good if you like golf and not so good if you don’t like golf (I always was great at stating the obvious). This definitely isn’t a game for people trying to get into golf as the complex controls and very busy UI make for a confusing experience for the first few hours.

That’s not to say there isn’t any signs of training or tutorials, the game has a Microsoft Office style helper asking if you want assistance but this isn’t helpful with 3 friends waiting to take their turn, the game isn’t as simple as the likes of Wii Sports but after a few hours the controls will feel far more intuitive and effective when playing.

Graphically the game is a combination of lush greens, woody browns and fiery effects with some cartoony characters put in the mix, it’s all very similar to Pangya! Golf but with a more crisp look and a slightly more grown-up feeling. Personally the graphics in We Love Golf are more to my own tastes reaching a very hard to balance middle ground using elements of eastern games bright colours while keeping western games more realistic approach.

Closing Comments
I spent an hour talking about We Love Golf with some friends after playing multiplayer with them, we all had different views on We Love Golf about its different mechanics, crowded UI, impressive graphics, online play, Capcom cameos and game modes. My final opinion of the game is that its one of the best golf games played and while it starts off slowly for players new to golf or the Wii, it soon ramps up (well, ramps up for golf) and becomes one of the more impressive 3rd party games on the Wii. Someone at Capcom must be psychic, as we certainly do love golf.

Score 9.0

+ Good amount of single player modes
+ great Capcom cameos
+ easy on the eye graphics
+ Mii supported…

- ….but not as functional as expected
- control scheme can be a bit daunting
- Steep learning curve
- User interface (UI) far too busy for the casual audience