3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures

I remember as a kid, going out to the local putt putt course and spending hours upon hours of frustration trying to master the windmill hole. Yes, I sucked-.sue me! 3D Ultra Minigolf is a new putt putt game for the 360 Arcade, and it promises to give you all those hours of enjoyment that the real greens used to give you as a kid. Only this time instead of just a windmill hole giving you trouble, try making the par 2 hole that has you hitting the ball into a outhouse full of explosives, which blow the ball up the ridge and near the hole. Oh yea, I forgot to mention that the course is littered with explosive barrels that is between you and the outhouse.

Visuals & Sound
MiniGolf is a good looking golf game, Tiger Woods it aint, but if you think about it this is not supposed to mimic real golf in anyway. Since you are playing mini golf, you won’t have any sweeping vistas or anything, each of the holes will be on a themed course. These consist of Old West, Carnival, and Outer Space. All of these do a wonderful job with making you feel like you are there. From the rattlesnakes to scorpions in the old west, or to the amusement park type rides, and games at the carnival. The sounds of this game are pretty standard for a golf game. You will be treated to different music depending on what type of course you are playing at. Make sure you have your own soundtracks handy though, because this music gets old real quick.

Controls & Gameplay
Throughout the course of the game (no pun intended) you will travel to 3 different putting greens. First on your trip is the Old West, complete with scorpions, rattlesnakes, and a saloon. All of these things make for a very interesting putting session. Your next stop is a carnival, which is really fun to play. It even has a pirate ship ride that acts like the windmill of old. Your last stop is space–the final frontier. Yup, you actually are playing putt putt in space. It is here that the game cheats. Well not really, you see every hole tells you what par it is.

The problem is that some of them don’t seem possible as a par 3 or 2 hole. For instance at one point in space you start at the bottom of a ramp, you are challenged to hit the ball across space and land it on this moon that is across from you. Problem is the hole is not at the top of the moon, but it is facing you. So if you don’t it the ball hard enough to touch the moon gravity wont grab it and it will fall. This hole is a par 2 hole, and just one of many holes that you are sure to come across that is next to impossible to complete under par. Controls are really easy, when you start you can pick between three control schemes.

The first is hold the A button, which means you hold the A button until your power meter is where you want it, then let it go. The next is 3 clicks, with this you hit the A button to get the power meter moving, you hit it again to make it stop, and then the last time is to actually hit the ball. It is a lot like Sony’s Hot Shot series. The last scheme and by far the best I think, is analog control. With this you can control how hard you hit the ball, just like in Tiger Woods.

Achievements
Pretty standard list of achievements, there is one for creating your own hole, and collecting all the medals for the various levels. This game also has multiplayer achievements as well, which are really easy to obtain. The rest of them are for completing courses under par in the various difficulty levels.

Online Functionality
ONLINE MULTIPLAYER! It feels like forever since I last bought a game that offers online multiplayer. You can play with up to 3 of your friends online, which really is a blast. Especially if you go last the game offers various power-ups and abilities that you can use to trip up your friends. You will find a lighting power up, which covers your ball in lighting, and if you can hit your ball close to an opponent’s ball, it will shock and toss his ball far away. Most cases out of bounds which means he has to start over. There are a lot of crazy and over the top power-ups in this one.

Verdict
All in all this is a very good game. Wither you are tired of playing Tiger Woods, or you just miss going to the mini golf greens this one is sure to please. It even has replay ability since you can play it online with friends, or strangers which ever you prefer.

Written by
Terrence spends his time going where no one has gone before mostly. But when not planning to take over the galaxy, he spends his time raising Chocobo and trying to figure out just how the sarlaac could pull Boba Fett’s ship with its engines firing FULL BLAST into it’s maw with relative ease; yet it struggled with Han Solo who was gripping *checks notes* SAND!