By “Shot-Online” is the massively-multiplayer-online (MMO) golf game with more than a million players worldwide.
“Think Tiger Woods Meets Final Fantasy” is what the box suggests to the potential buyer. I say, think again. This game does not live up to the hype. Playing this game was nothing short of a wasted weekend.
Unlike most MMO’s, one good perk of owning this game is you don’t have to pay a monthly fee to play. But, the flip side is that it has the “Gun Bound” mentality of conducting business. If you want better equipment then you have to pay for it, and it’s not cheap.
Money is the biggest downside to this game. If you are casual about playing video games you’ll most likely invest about $50 into it. However, if you want to get more serious about the game then you will find yourself spending about $150.
OK, $150 is a lot of money to me and I am sure it is a lot to the average college student. Instead of frivolously spending hard-earned money on some stupid game and having nothing to show for it, you could spend that money on school books or car repairs. It would be better spent on something practical, or at least entertaining.
The graphics are sub-par. Think about the graphics of the early PlayStation 2 era, which are outdated by today’s standards. This doesn’t necessarily mean the game has to be horrible. I’ve always said a game doesn’t need anything except “game play.” Unfortunately, this game has as much “game play” as having dental work done.
The game plays rather simply. Pointing and clicking pretty much does everything from walking around in the online arena to winging a ball down the fairway.
One of the major problems I see with this game is the lack of variety when it comes to the character models. There are only six models, two girls and four guys, so when you play the game it becomes repetitive.
The game also lacked a variety of music. It’s always the same happy, upbeat song. It is fine the first couple of times, but it becomes annoying to listen to. I found myself muting the music and just putting my iPod on and listening to what I wanted to listen to.
Minimum requirements to play “Shot-Online:” Pentium III 450Mhz, 128 MB RAM, 500 MB HDD, Win9X, Win2000, WinME or WinXP and a 3D accelerated 32M graphics card. But the real requirement is to have a lot of time to kill and no desire to have any fun.
This game obviously appeals to only one sect of gamers, and that’s the extreme golf fans out there. If you fall into this category, I’m sure you will love playing this game and I say more power to you.
For the rest of us, this game is just a waste of time and money. If you really want a good golf video game, any one of these would make a better choice: “Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour,” “Outlaw Golf 2” or “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06.”
