TGS 06: Sega Golfclub Featuring Miyazato Family Hands-On

TOKYO--Two of the more popular sports games in Tokyo arcades are Sega's Power Smash Tennis (which we know as Virtua Tennis here in the States) and its Sega Golfclub game. For the launch of the PlayStation 3, Sega is releasing Sega Golfclub Featuring Miyazato Family, a family-themed golf game that plays very similarly to previous arcade games in the series, which is to say, it's confusing.

The game features three well-known Japanese golfers, all hailing from the same family. Ai Miyazato is probably the best known of the bunch; she plays on the LPGA Tour. Her brother, Yusaku, himself a PGA golfer, holds the distinction of being the first golfer to ever hit two hole-in-one shots in the same round of a PGA event. The final piece of the familial puzzle is the other sibling, Kiyoshi. All three of the golfers are modeled in the game, and their virtual selves are fairly convincing copies of the real thing.

Those accurate player models actually look out of place with the arcade-ish style and feel of Sega Golfclub's interface. The game is so heavy on meters and on information on the screen that the beauty of the courses and the accuracy of the players themselves sort of get lost in the shuffle.

The single most difficult aspect of Golfclub's gameplay, however, is, well, the gameplay. Swinging the club isn't done by pulling back and then pushing forward on the right analog stick, but rather is a timing-based exercise whereby you have to pull the right stick back and then watch a meter at the bottom end of the screen fill up. The more it fills up, the stronger your shot will be. To hit the shot you want, you must let go at the right moment.

What we didn't understand is why the meter would suddenly (and quite inexplicably) change in color from orange to yellow, often resulting in our shanking our shot just a few yards ahead of us. Of course, the lovely Japanese girl manning the demo station tried for roughly five minutes to help us understand the game's arcane controls, but her Japanese and our English didn't mix very well. While it seems the game lets you get pretty precise with the length of your shot, we couldn't figure out how to add draw or fade to the ball. The putting system was frustrating as well--though arrows accurately showed the break of the green left or right, it was really tough to judge distance--and we three-putted more than one hole during our time with the game.

Our issues with the game are probably moot anyway, as there's very little chance of the game coming out in the States, especially since few people even know who the Miyazatos are outside of Japan. Nonetheless, with the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series dominating the American golf gaming world, it was fun to see an entirely different take on the game.