If this doesn’t live up to it’s name I’m gonna be so disillusioned.
First released as an Apple IIGS game in 1988, Zany Golf was ported to several other home computers in the following months and to the Sega Genesis in 1990. It’s sometimes known as Will Harvey’s Zany Golf in honor of its programmer, Will Harvey of not-yet-a-powerhouse studio Electronic Arts. Harvey’s history as a game programmer is not especially noteworthy – this is one of only two games he made in his career, the other being 1990’s Immortal. He was more well-known his work on Music Construction Set, the first ever commercial computer program for making sheet music.
Zany Golf was also released on the Amiga and some other home computer platforms before finally getting a Sega Genesis release in 1990, two years after the original release. Based on its title, I feel like I understand what’s going to happen here, but let’s try to answer a few key questions.
First – is it Zany?
Why yes! It is in fact, quite zany – most of the game’s nine holes having various moving parts and gimmicks, with varying degrees. As an example, this one places the hole under a burger that bounces up and down:
You can repeatedly press ‘A’ to make it jump up and down more emphatically, which is immensely helpful in making sure you don’t just hit the burger when it’s on the ground, sending you into the lower areas around it. Another hole is essentially just a straight up pinball machine:
So zany! Second question – is it golf?
Mostly! As the previous images and text indicate, this sure is golf, except for the previous hole which is mostly just pinball. This is assuming, of course, that you count miniature golf as golf. I definitely do, seeing as how miniature horses are still horses.
The rules and mechanics are about what you’d expect – you have a set number of shots to complete each hole, and you need to aim your shot and determine the shot strength and so forth. You do that until you finish the hole or don’t (more on that in a moment), or you get annoyed and throw your Genesis out a window, whichever comes first.
Third, and perhaps most importantly – is it good?
Not especially! The biggest issue I’ve had with Zany Golf is that despite being a Genesis port, it still feels very much like a keyboard/mouse sort of game, and the overall gameplay suffers quite a bit because of it. It’s tougher to see an entire hole, and to plan and aim a shot. Apparently this was a big enough problem that one of the holes from the PC version isn’t in the game at all, but apparently the other holes were deemed fine. With a few exceptions, I’m honestly pretty inclined to disagree. Some of these holes are just utterly cruel, or overly punishing if you make a mistake. For instance:
Just look at this nonsense. See how I’m stuck in a pit? And the hole is nowhere to be found? Yeah. This sure is “Zany.” Oh, and that hamburger nonsense? That’s the second hole. It just gets worse from there.
This really comes to a head when hitting the maximum number of allowed strokes on a hole (usually 5), because doing that results in a game over. That’s right – you don’t just “lose” the hole or whatever and move on; you’re just done. To play the full course, you have to do very well, and the same doesn’t really set you up to do that. There’s a “practice” mode that is considerably more forgiving, but you can still run out of “total strokes.” In any mode, I never quite saw the full course.
All of that said, I certainly get the charm to Zany Golf. It works as well as it can, and when it’s not just being infuriating it’s really quite goofy and weird. As with a lot of games with unsteady designs, it’s probably best played with a friend or two who are into weird games. To put it another way, I will play it with you. I guess.
Next week’s game introduces another platform that I’ve been hoping would come up for a very long time now. Also the game looks pretty ridiculous, so this ought to be a fun one. See you then!