Vertiginous Golf (Hands-On) (PC) Preview

Mini-golf really is the best description of the activity in Veritiginous Golf. Whereas Mario Golf, Hot Shots, and other such series imitate "real" golf courses, with long drives towards a green and a hole at the end, Veritiginous instead imitates mini-golf. Holes are disjointed, there are "tricks" everywhere - such as moving ramps, angled banks at the end of channelled lanes such that the ball travels a sharp 90 degrees, even fans that blow the ball to and fro and treadmills that send the ball flying off into the air.

Vertiginous Golf is mini-golf taken to the extreme, though. Hole design is almost Rube Goldbergian; a hole might have moving ramps to launch the ball from, treadmills to shoot the ball hundreds of feet, giant curved dishes to catch a ball and guide it towards some hole, greens that consist of several consecutive levels of ramps up to the flag, fans that blow the ball this way and that. In short, level design is great, fantastic stuff.

Real golf can only go so far, as after all a long stretch of grass and then a hole is the whole game. Veritiginous Golf goes so much further, to the point that reaching the end of a hole feels like a real accomplishment, even if it takes 37 strokes. One more note about level design is that tamer "mini-putt" levels are being developed, sans crazy treadmills and island hopping - just good old fashioned mini-golf.

All of this would be painful if the gameplay was not good. It is solid, though. Pull back on the stick and the club draws back smoothly, whilst a bar on the side of the screen tells the player exactly how much power they are applying. Release and the club strikes and off the ball goes with good physics simulation providing accuracy and predictability (meaning learnable and reproducible, rather than boring).

Smoothing the way to the flag are some helpers. There's the mechanical hummingbird, which the player can jump into it at any time to fly around the course and check the lay of the land. Then there's the bug, a device that sits on top of the ball and allows ball's course to be changed with a limited jet stream. With a chipper and a putter, that's plenty of ways to get around a course, even the mad courses of Vertiginous Golf.

Some catchy art and relaxing audio round out the game, with the art easily being the more impressive of the two. Victorian is the best description; great glass towers and metallic frameworks everywhere, lush carpeting drapes the islands and holes, and archaic brass ans and phonograph horns adorn towers. It's a visual treat and well fit to the hole design style.