dbarry_22's Game Review of Waialae Country Club

Limited in Several Ways
dbarry_22 - wrote on 05/08/13

Waialae Country Club for the Nintendo 64 has a hard to pronounce name, but that's minor compared to the rest of the flaws this game has.

Waialae has a huge problem right off the start. It only has one course. It's a Hawaiian course that has 18 holes. Cartridge limits aside, almost any other golf game you find out there has at least 3 or more courses, even ones for the N64, so this becomes unforgivable. The course is also bland and has no real memorable holes.

The graphics are below average compared to other Nintendo 64 games of the era. The course is rendered in 3D in a poor way and the golfers you play with are 2D images placed on top of it. It does not look good.

If you get past the poor graphics and the lack of courses, tee to green this game is fairly advanced. You have the ability to draw or fade your shots by adjusting your stance. You can hit a low or high ball, and club selection is what you'd expect. The power meter for when you hit shots can be frustrating, since it's hard to figure out what is a half shot or 3/4 shot. And, it's pretty easy to hit a duff or top the ball, but after a while if you can get pretty good at hitting shots it's pretty fun hitting it from tee to green. The wind affects the flight of the ball a little too much in my opinion though.

Short game, on the other hand, was looked over. Chipping is flawed, because not knowing how hard to hit it becomes a even larger variable. You should be able to chip with any club 7 iron to wedge, but since the power meter does not change in a chipping situation, you're forced to use your wedge. The same power flaw happens when you putt and it's also hard to read the green. The overall fundamental flaw when it comes to this is that you aren't given any numbers, not on your power meter, no elevation reading, nothing like that which would be extremely helpful. Knowing the distance from the ball to the flag and the wind just isn't enough to play golf.

I did find this game at a used game store for $2. I guess for $2 it's not a bad game. But if you're looking for a golf game to play on the N64, Mario Golf is definitely the way to go, not this.

2/5