Outlaw Golf 2 PS2 Review

Golf is genuinely dull and if we found ourselves in an unfortunate situation, which forced us to watch this dismal sport, we’d rather send a club crashing down on the TV then succumb to viewing it. Luckily in the gaming industry things are that little bit different, titles like the Everybody’s Golf series on the PlayStation have added enough personality to dispel the “boring” stigma that has long been attached to the sport. Outlaw Golf 2 is the sequel to another golfing title that shunned the dull image upon its release.

We have got to hand it to the development team behind Outlaw Golf for coming up with something refreshingly funny. There’s a wisecracking commentator present and the diverse golfing cast are a bunch of humorous personalities. The ladies of the fairways have also been sexed up (for those who are into that sort of virtual stuff) meaning that there’s plenty of big breasts and sexually suggestive mannerisms on show, for the normal amongst us it’s just another little bit of comical fun. All this collectively comes together to assure that the game never has a single dull moment.

Outlaw Golf 2 truly convinces, as a top tier £40 title, but trundling down to the store with £20 in your pocket will still buy you the game, and at that price it’s a real bargain. The amount of things to see and do is amazing and puts many similarly priced titles to shame. It’s not quantity over quality though as the game itself plays a mean 18-holes of golf.

We’d be lying to claim that Outlaw Golf 2 was easy to get to grips with, as it’s not. The game utilises the tried and tested analogue stick swing mechanics as seen in EA’s Tiger Woods series, but compared to the aforementioned games it’s a lot easier to get used to thanks to a rather effective shot power meter. While swinging the club is an exercise in precision, it’s not particularly difficult to keep a shot straight (we’ll talk composure later). We did find that the shot meter was a little difficult to read though due to the absence of digits, but it is pretty accurate for the most part and just needs that little extra brainpower, plus there’s the ghost ball feature, which shows you how to take the perfect shot, but we feel that it’s best to learn the game yourself.

When we did eventually reach the green, we found that putting was also rather awkward to grasp. There are some nice ideas present here though, such as being restricted to the number of times that you can check the approximate direction of your upcoming putt. Plenty of satisfaction is also to be found in knocking the ball into the hole from quite a distance. In fact, learning the game is all part of the fun and is quite a laugh if you are playing with a similarly unskilled opponent.

Keeping your calm is a necessity as a badly timed shot is consequential, resulting in loss of composure. You’ll need to be much more precise to keep a shot straight if your composure meter is sinking/sunk into the red. Luckily playing good again isn’t the only way to restore composure; granted you have an available token to deposit, mini games are also available to try your hand at. Staying with the comic nature of the game, the two mini games are a good laugh. You can opt to let off some steam by beating up your caddie or even drive a golf cart and mow down innocent spectators. Whilst all this may not sit well with some hardcore fans of the sport, it should hit the spot for many other folk.

The gaming options are literally bursting with things to do. If you’d rather not play a standard round of golf, major changes or stipulations can make the game all the more exciting. You can play a round with baseball like rules or even remove a club of your choosing from an opponents bag after winning a hole, which gives you all the reason in the world to keep on winning. The game can even be played online. For £20 Outlaw Golf 2 surprisingly just keeps on giving.

We never found ourselves as captivated by Outlaw Golf 2 as we have been with the Everybody’s Golf series in the past, but it’s still one of the most entertaining golfing titles in recent memory. The low price tag means that the game is a very good deal and comes included with 8 courses, hilarious characters and loads of variations on the sport itself. Not a hole in one perhaps (pardon the pun), but it certainly comes highly recommended.

7/10