Two Fisted Tales of Plaid Pants and Shaft-Swingin' Ball-Smackery, Or Combat Golf Games
By Christopher Coleman
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Golf is a painfully ubiquitous genre of video game, and games with violence are as common as your mother, and half as easy to get one's hands on. What's not so easily discovered, however, is a combination of the two genres. Who would think of putting violence into a golf game, aside from perhaps a smashing-your-clubs-when-you-miss-an-easy-shot mini-game or two. Have EA put that into a Tiger Woods release yet?
Ninja Golf (Atari 7800)
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The alpha and omega of all golf combat games (at least, all of the four I'm aware of - in depth research is for dorks). The Atari 7800 wasn't exactly the most popular of consoles, but Atari seems to be fond of the occasionally inspired bit of lunacy on their systems. Ever played Kasumi Ninja on Jaguar, for example? Totally unforgivable, but totally hilarious too. Ninja Golf is a bizarre concept indeed - a ninja doing 18 holes on the links, while fighting off gophers, other ninjas presumably trying to play through, and dragons defending each hole. I'll allow you a moment for that to sink in, and then I'll direct you to a rather excellent and well detailed http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/ninjagolf/ I-Mockery page so you can check it out in greater detail for yourself.
I for one really love this game, it's definitely my favourite 7800 game of all time (not too hard a call to make, considering the dearth of titles for the system), and I play it now and then via emulation.
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro Am (PlayStation Two)
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If you're unfamiliar with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon, then your life, frankly, isn't worth living. I personally am glad to know that I can die happy at any moment, since I've seen the ATHF episode called "Hand Banana". This noble attempt at a licenced ATHF videogame is.. you guessed it, a golf game with combat involved. It's incredibly similar to Ninja Golf in concept and, to an extent, execution, but is of course significantly more advanced - being able to change characters and utilize different abilities, more advanced powerups, varying boss fights and even the addition of racing combat sections (which are a little clumsy, but fun enough I suppose) all make this game a bit of a laugh - nothing you'll play for hundreds of hours, but, given its budget price, worthwhile. The addition of a significant amount of extras, including four complete episodes of the show, make it even more cool. One of the episodes has never been aired - you can kinda see why, but it's still a treat.
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Battle Golfer Yui (Sega MegaDrive)
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This game looks at least somewhat interesting, but since I can't read or write Japanese, I can't even get past the first menu - trial and error is for dorks, and besides, who won the war?
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Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf (arcade, NES)
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There's no reason whatsoever for this to be called "fighting" golf, unfortunately, although if you look at the NES game's cover, it looks like Lee Trevino Will Kick Your Ass. I wonder if he'd like to kick the ass of the SNK developers who decided to give the selectable characters names like Big Jumbo or Miracle Chosuke.
It's a very typical golf game - overhead map, into the screen third person view, slider control, nothing noteworthy whatsoever, to be honest.
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