Review: Worms Crazy Golf
Posted by Curtis H on October 30th, 2011 | 1 Comment | Tags: Worms Crazy Golf
It’s probably easy to look at Worms Crazy Golf and roll your eyes. Knock it up to another franchise getting milked for all it’s worth and try to move on. But in all honesty, seeing the words Worms and Golf in the same title just feels like a perfect fit. The core gameplay of Worms fits so well with golf it’s a wonder how this wasn’t made years ago for consoles.
Worms Crazy Golf plays out exactly as you’d expect it to. Just aim in the direction you want to hit the golf ball and set the power of your shot. Each hole has a set par that you must match in order to progress through each course as well as special coins and crates that you can collect to unlock special items in the game’s shop. In addition to the typical golf hazards to watch out for, you’ll need watch out for worms, sheep, land mines, bats and more. Colliding with a worm will cause it to commit suicide while sheep will eat nearby golf balls. As you progress through each of the game’s three courses you’ll unlock special abilities that can be used. Slow time, blast shot, parachute, reverse gravity and heavy ball can all be used to your advantage and, on some holes, are completely necessary. The power-ups are fun to use but ultimately make the game too easy. Slow time and heavy ball rarely seem useful while reverse gravity makes a hole-in-one on every hole a little too easy.
Outside of the main gameplay there’s a shop that can be accessed to purchase different types of clubs and accessories for your worm. There’s dozens of hats, golf ball types and voice samples to purchase. The game requires you to unlock these extras before you purchase them. This is done by collecting the special crate that is located somewhere on each hole. More often than not you’ll have to go out of your way to get these crates. In addition to crates each hole has a set of challenges to complete. These consist of getting par on the hole, finding the crate, getting a set score and collecting all of the coins in the level. These coins are spread all over and will likely result in a high stroke count. Although the coins are there to give you a reason to keep playing I never really felt the need to collect them. They just felt a bit pointless.
Worms Crazy Golf also features a challenge mode to put your golf skills to the test. The eighteen challenges in the game are split into five different categories. Skill shot, time attack, chip-in, target and keep ups. You’ll either need to destroy targets in a shot amount of time, land a shot on the green or keep your golf ball moving for as long as possible. These challenges appear as you play through each course but can be played outside of the main game. They offer a nice bit of variety and, for the most part, are fun.
The multiplayer mode allows you to play with up to four people and the option to choose which holes to play. You can do the full eighteen, the back/front-nine, a set of three, or just a specific hole. Unfortunately there’s no online option in the game which seems like a pretty big omission for something like this.
Worms Crazy Golf is a lot of fun. Despite its issues I really enjoyed the game and each course design fit’s its theme exceptionally well. For example, sand traps in the graveyard theme are skeleton bones. Unfortunately each of the three courses in the game only take about an hour to complete. As much fun as the game may be there’s just simply not enough content or reason to keep coming back. Ultimately Worms Crazy Golf left me wanting more for all of the wrong reasons.
A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here. This review is for the PlayStation 3 version of the game.
General Info
- Release Date: October 2011
- Price: $9.99, £6.29/€7.99
- Genre: Golf
- Players: 1-4 (Local)
- Ratings: Everyone, PEGI 7
Score:
What I Like:
- Worms gameplay translates well to golf
- Course designs are great
- Challenge mode
What I Dislike:
- Lack of content
- No online multiplayer
- Lack of difficulty