Miniature Golf was patented in 1927 by Garnet Carter, who termed it "Tom Thumb Golf." Had he managed to retain exclusive small-scale golf rights, he'd be raking in licensing dough from mobile publishers. Mini golf has completely supplanted bowling as the official pastime of wireless gamers. Jamdat Mini Golf is a standard genre piece that benefits from excellent presentation and course design.
Jamdat seems to have a strange affinity for tiki-themed games, and Jamdat Mini Golf is the latest title to bear this odd style, which went out of vogue along with ducktail haircuts. Tribal shamans will lunge at your balls, and giant, wooden totems will often block your path to the hole. Fortunately, each of these 18 obstacle-laden greens is passable in several ways. Taking risky routes can yield low scores, but you'll have to take pains to ensure your ball doesn't end up sliding down a hill or getting sucked into a warp hole.
There's nothing complicated about Mini Golf's gameplay, which only requires the use of the LG VX7000's horizontal directional keys and OK button. After lining up your shot, you'll press OK to activate the power meter, which works just like its Jamdat Bowling counterpart. It's easy to select your desired shot strength on the slow-moving bar, and the game's physics are rather forgiving anyhow. Hole in ones are quite possible, even on the more-complex holes. You can play against your own scores, or against a human opponent, by swapping your handset around. In two-player situations, one person will use a male character, and the other will play as a pigtailed female putter. GPRS multiplayer would have, of course, been a welcome addition.
Mini Golf has a really clean, professional look. Its detailed sprite artistry rivals that of console games from the 16-bit era. Both the ball and the obstacles in its path look good in motion, although the latter could have used more frames of animation. The graphics add a great deal to Mini Golf's overall appeal.
The sound is equally good. Calypso music, complete with a steel drum line, accompanies gameplay. There are sound effects for all collisions in the game, and a Valley girl voice either cheers or laments, depending on your performance, after each hole.
Jamdat Mini Golf is one of the best Mini Golf games available, simply because it doesn't require too much thought to play. The visuals will appeal to just about anyone, and its menus are slick and intuitive. Apart from its hot seat multiplayer, which fails to impress, Mini Golf is an airtight game that's difficult to critique. By nature, a game in this growing genre is unlikely to blow you out of your seat, but Jamdat Mini Golf won't have you demanding a refund, either.
