Planet Golf Deep Dive Review
The creator of “P0 Snake”, Antonio Savona, has followed up this instant classic with yet another great title, “Planet Golf”. Antonio created the game as a tribute to Alan Shepard who is the first and only person to have played golf on the Moon back in 1971.
In Planet Golf you play golf on multiple planets including Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. There are two additional golf courses that can be unlocked. Inherent with these planetary locations, the gravity and surface resistance are different making you have to adjust your game for the different terrains. This makes for a great challenge. In addition to the mixed environments, the game has added several obstacles to make things interesting depending on which planet you are on. For example, some maps have birds flying by which can be hit. Others might have crashing meteors, aliens, black holes, or even departing space ships. Mars also introduces coins that are placed in random places in the game maps for the purpose of creating a new challenge and achievement. Planet Golf has single and two-player game mode options, represented by one or two golf clubs in the menu system. In the two-player game mode, gameplay proceeds as normal with player one starting and the players alternating play after a player finishes the hole or hits the ball into a hazard. You can tell which player is currently playing by looking at the text directly beneath the power meter. For beginners player one is at a disadvantage since player two can learn from player one’s mistakes.
When you first load the game up you are presented with the following splash screen showing off Psytronik software. At the same time, we are given a nice glimpse of what is to come in terms of speech synthesis when the spoken message is uttered: “Psytroniks Presents”.
We are then brought to the games title screen which prominently displays “Planet Golf” at the top of the screen with the ‘O’ in Golf showing planet Earth rapidly rotating. Music is also playing in the background. The game’s title is glistening with many randomly placed shining rotating stars. The writing on the title screen initially displays the game’s credits in a rainbow of rotating colors. The text is shifted out and replaced with the “galactic hall of fame” for each of the planets in the game. This shows the three top scores achieved on each planet.
At the bottom of the screen, the user has three choices to choose from. The first selection is a golf ball which when selected will advance us to the planetary selection screen, the precursor to starting the game. The middle selection which resembles a golf club will allow you to select the between one or two-player modes. The third option with looks like a trophy will cycle through the various available achievements in the game. Once an achievement has been made the displayed achievement will have a prominent checkmark added to the image. The achievements are a great way to gauge your accomplishments in the game and are the key to unlocking two additional planets for further play.
Gameplay
In Planet Golf you play golf with an imaginary club represented by a line of animated plus signs. Pressing left or right on your joystick will adjust your aim. You control the force with which you can hit the ball by pressing the fire button. A multi-colored power meter is displayed in the bottom center of the screen. Releasing the button will launch the ball in the direction selected. Your goal of course is to lob the ball into the hole, indicated by the waving flag, using the fewest strokes possible. Some holes even display a quick tip or message at the beginning of a hole. Pressing down on the joystick will make the message disappear.
On the lower portion, the screen the current hole being played is displayed on the left side, followed by the number of strokes required to make PAR. For example, if PAR is three, you are expected to hit the ball into the hole by the third shot. On the bottom right portion of the screen, your number of shots taken is displayed and is color-coded. If the text for the number of shots taken is green, this signifies you are still below PAR. If it’s yellow you are shooting for PAR. If it’s RED you are over PAR. The number to the just to the right of your shots taken is your overall score for ALL holes in the game and is displayed in white color. It might seem weird when you first start the game and your score is a negative number. This is because the game subtracts PAR from your score prior to you taking your first shot. If your score is less than PAR the game will display a minus sign in front for your score. Conversely, if your score is more than PAR your score will be displayed with a plus sign preceding it. If your score is worse than plus ninety-nine then the game will spare your further embarrassment and just display plus ninety-nine.
Normally a round of golf consists of 18 holes. In Planet Golf the number of holes required to complete a game changes depending on the planet you are on. The unlocked planets take 21 holes to complete while the locked planets only require the traditional 18 holes to complete. During gameplay, the user can press down on the joystick to pull up a quick menu to toggle between game music or sound effects. You can also abandon the current game navigating back to the title screen.
After taking a shot pressing UP on the joystick will enable fast mode and places a fast forward symbol, top right, and speeds up the ball movement to 3 times normal speed. The same effect will also make the flag wave faster, birds, aliens, and water will move three times faster than normal. Speaking of Aliens, yes there is the occasional Alien roaming around on some of the planets holes. The Aliens will not bother you as long as you don’t bother them. However, they are sometimes in your way. The ball will bounce off of them and if annoyed enough they will kick your ball. If they kick your ball this counts against you as an extra shot. I’ve noticed you can prevent their kick if you start your swing before their foot makes contact with the ball.
There is no time constraint in Planet Golf. You could for example play a fast round of golf in 10 minutes or you could play an extremely slow game possibly stretching days or even weeks depending upon the amount of time you take between swings and holes.
It’s not always straightforward to be able to sink the ball in the hole. Planet Golf does throw some curveballs your way with water hazards and other un-natural barriers to mix it up. When the ball goes off the screen or into a “water” hazard the speech synthesis will kick in with a random phrase and your stroke position will be reset to the last played location on the screen. Some of the barriers or obstacles change from planet to planet. For example, on Jupiter, you may have to dodge falling boulders or hit over rockets, or on Earth, birds, water, and mud are factors. In later holes, there are mysterious items thrown in such as black holes, anti-gravity fields, and lasers. I love the fact that seemingly every hole introduces a new challenge. On some holes, there are multiple flags or ways to complete the hole. When playing a round do not get discouraged if it takes you more than 20 or 30 shots to finish it. Some of the holes are exceedingly difficult to attain Par.
Strategy
If you are attempting to play for score, Planet Golf can be a difficult game. My recommendation is since there is no time limit, take time to survey the hole and come up with a game plan. Practice, practice, practice, on the same planet, until you have mastered it. Planet Golf is more enjoyable the better you get at it. Each planet has its own special gravity and challenges. For some holes, it may be necessary to think about unconventional methods to get your ball closer to the hole such as ricocheting it off another object.
Graphics
Planet Golf has exceeded every expectation I had for the graphics in this game. It is simply amazing. Flags wave in the wind. There are various background images on each hole, many of which are animated nicely. The direction selector is a multi-colored animated group of plus signs. The power meter is nicely detailed and the colors in general, work together well. Many holes add new challenges many of which are animated bringing them to life. The golf ball feels like a golf ball when playing. It’s just the right size. There are conveyor belts, water, ice, and mud effects simulated. On Planet Earth daytime play is simulated with a blue background with some holes even showing the Sun, while Night time play is shown with a black background. If you’re paying attention you will notice the ball will get lost in the Sun. On one hole the Moon is visible as a half crescent. On planet Jupiter, in the background on some holes, you can see other planets as well as floating cities. There are different colored clouds than we see on Earth. The falling boulders are mesmerizing, multi-shaded, nicely detailed, and animated as are the falling satellites or space junk and flying UFOs. The imagery on some of the planets shows nicely shaded graphics in the form of mountains or factories or even Cities. Some of the background objects are even animated! The ships that blast off show puffs of smoke at the bottom. All of these little graphical details do not go un-noticed. They are appreciated.
Sound
In Planet Golf you can play either with the music in the background or turn it off and hear all of the sound effects. I enjoy the background music but prefer to play using the game’s sound effects. You have the sound for the golf swing, for making contact with the ball, you hear the perfect sound for a water splash. There are various sound effects for things such as when you hit an Alien on Mars, a bird on Earth or meteors falling from the sky. At first, I was really missing the fact there is no sound for when the ball finally drops into the cup, but the more I played that bothered me less and less. As was the case with P0 Snake, Planet Golf also has terrific speech synthesis. You will hear in a female voice, “Lets Play”, or “hole in one” are just a few such terms. There is also a male voice that I remember uttered, “oops”, “Go Easy” and “slow down”. The term “miles and miles and miles” is also played occasionally which is a tribute to Alan Shepard who uttered it after hitting his second golf ball on the moon.
There’s a nice youtube video the on PGA tour channel here covering that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUwGe9zzxoE
When you hit a ball off the screen, you hear some random speech such as the crowd gasping and when you complete a hole, you hear the crowd clapping. On the final planet, there is also a synth for the crowd booing. My favorite utterance is “to infinity”. Although voice synthesis is not a necessary component of the game, it certainly is a nice welcome addition.
Bonus Material
Antonio Savona even included a bonus diskette containing a video simulation of John F. Kennedys moon speech, early rocket launch, and moon landing footage. The graphics are in black and white, include speech synthesis, and are nicely done. As the footage plays it switches from showing the video to showing some of the games text credits then back to the footage, evoking the exciting feeling of watching the beginning of a new movie.
The bonus material continues to tell the story of how mankind eventually was able to leave earth and inhabit other planets, some of which of course, we would eventually play golf on.
It shows the planetary simulation of our solar system with all of the planets lined up next to the sun, while we read the lore, as the years are ticking by on the top right corner, music playing in the background. As we reach about the year 2500 we start to see ships leaving Earth, the presumption being to travel to the other planets for inhabiting. I thought this might have been a tie into Buck Rogers but I realized the year 2500 is the 26th Century. The years keep increasing until we reach the present day, the year 38,911, which happens to also correspond to the bytes remaining message when you first power on your Commodore 64, a nice tie in. Also, I noticed in year 38,911 there are nine planets represented. Has Pluto re-gained its planetary designation? Unfortunately for Pluto Fans, this is not the case. The next few sentences are a bit of a spoiler as I mention the name of a locked planet. If you do not want that spoiled fast forward about 30 seconds. The ninth planet has been named Kepler. I believe this is two homages. One to the theoretical planet nine that modern scientists theorize is out there in the outer limits of our solar system but has yet to be officially discovered, and the other, the name of the planet, to Johannes Kepler, who is best known for his laws of planetary motion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler
The other option included in the bonus materials is called “Planet Golf Beat Box” and allows you to select and play the various soundtracks found within the game.
Achievements
I was pleased to see Planet Golf had unlockable courses and achievements. The available achievements are:
Bird Slyer – “Hit all the bird on the Earth Couse in a single game”
Space Pirate – “Collect all the golden Coins on the Mars Course in a single game”
Lightning – “Complete the Jupiter course without being hit by an asteroid”
Sniper – “Hole in one in any three holes in a single game”
Glory – “Enter the galactic hall of fame”
Shepard – “Complete any ten holes in par in a single game”
Attaining three achievements will unlock the first unlockable planet, five achievements will unlock both planets courses for playing on.
These achievements literally add many hours of gameplay fun and are a welcome addition to any game.
World Records
I was unable to find any OFFICIAL World Records for Planet Golf. However, there is really nice leader board made specifically for the game over at:
http://hayesmaker.com/planet-golf/
Here, players can post their scores, and the top 10 for each planet are listed.
Wish list Items
Planet Golf is nearly perfect as is, so I challenged myself to try to come up with any ideas for improvement. These are the things I came up, my little wish list:
• I would have liked some kind of indicator to know which planet I am playing on since my gameplay sometimes extends beyond one day.
• I would have liked the game messages to not repeat after they have been viewed or have the option to disable them.
• I would love for there to be a way to reset back to starting place on a hole and even take a penalty.
• I would have liked for there to be a way to save progress in a game and continue at a later time.
• I would have liked to have had a hole selection ability to practice a particular hole.
• It would have been nice to have the ability to skip to the next hole when you get stuck. Embarrassingly, there have been times when it took me more than 50 shots to get past a hole.
Packaging
The deluxe media package for Planet Golf is similar to that of Galencia, although not AS extensive. The deluxe plus version came with a nice box. The legendary Oliver Frey did the artwork for the cover. It depicts an astronaut playing golf on a remote planet similar to Mars, with the golf ball jutting off the box. Included within the box is a plastic CD style case that holds the games diskette and manual. The included diskette had nice artwork of the stars of the galaxy. There were a few stickers thrown in along with a Psytronik and a planet golf pin and planet golf key chain. I also opted to purchase the soundtrack CD which has similar artwork to that of the diskette. Overall I am extremely pleased with the packaging and I thought it was well done. The cartridge version just recently became available for purchase.
Podcasts / Other media coverage
Planet Golf was mentioned on the Sceneworld.org podcast episode 38
https://sceneworld.org/blog/2017/10/09/fabiandoehla/
There’s an interview with Antonio in Retro Gamer Magazine and he was also featured in a homebrew hero segment. Here he mentions an expansion to Planet Golf is coming soon and will be called “World Class Planet Golf”.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/retro-gamer/20171130/283609580498637
Now I think this might be a record. Planet Golf and Antonio are mentioned in four consecutive Freeze64 fanzine issues starting with issue 13. In issue 13 there is a mini-review or sizzler. In Issue 14 Planet Golf is one of the picks for Freeze64 top game of 2017. Issue 15 contains an interview of Antonio Savona and Issue 16 is slated to have a making-of segment for the game.
https://freeze64.com/freeze64-issue-13/
https://freeze64.com/freeze64-issue-14/
https://freeze64.com/freeze64-issue-15/
https://freeze64.com/freeze64-issue-16/
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PlanetGolfC64/
Antonio Savona Twitter:
https://twitter.com/tonysavon?lang=en
Publisher link:
http://psytronik.net/newsite/index.php/c64/87-planetgolf
The “Hall of Fame” song on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/aldosid/planet-golf-galactic-hall-of-fame-recorded-from-a-real-c64-with-a-8580-sid-chip
Lemon 64 Preview link:
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61153&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
There is also a download for the Planet Golf Beat Box ONLY:
http://csdb.dk/release/?id=157748
Conclusion
Planet Golf follows in the footsteps of other popular golf games that proceeded it, such as Desert Golfing and Mountain Desert Golf on mobile platforms, but at the same time, it treads its own path and improves upon it with its unique take on golf. Five planets await your exploration. All with their own gravity and different challenges. I love all the attention to detail placed into the game as well as the obstacles thrown which all add to the fun. There are 99 playable holes to play in total. The game is extremely challenging and will require tons of practice to master. The graphics are nice and polished and the music, sounds effects, and speech synthesis is superb. The addition of achievements, two-player options, and having five different planets to choose from really adds a great deal to the replay value. This game is addictive and fun to play. Antonio Savona has outdone himself with this game. It’s one of the top releases of 2017 for the Commodore 64.
Highly Recommended.
Youtube Original Post Date: 01/14/2018
