Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2

June 23,2008 - When Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee came out for the PSP shortly after its launch in North America, it quickly became one of the cult favorite games for the new handheld. Its accessible gameplay and addictive challenge mode were a perfect fit for the handheld scene. Three years later, it’s about time Clap Hanz put out a sequel to give players new items to collect and new courses to master. With Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2, do PSP owners have another golf title to be addicted to or should they stick to the original?

The biggest change in Open Tee 2 over the original has to be how the Challenge mode works. Instead of offering a group of events that offer up one item each if you win, the events are divided up into three groups for each tier. These tiers consist of events divided up into groups that contained events offering head, body, or accessory cards for winning, though if you win tournaments by three strokes or reach 3 up on versus matches, you get to pick two cards at the end of the event. The other neat twist is that if you collect all of the cards offered for a group, you level up your skills in either control (head cards), power (body cards), and spin (accessories cards). Alongside these, there’s a separate counter of the amount of cards you collect from that tier to unlock the final versus match that lets you unlock a new golfer, which is usually the same as leveling up two groups of events in that particular tier. This helps make the game move faster at first for players familiar with past Hot Shots Golf games, as you’re more likely to win earlier events more easily and advance faster to the tougher events later in the mode.

The online mode is the big addition to Open Tee 2, which works pretty much the same way as Out of Bounds did on the PS3. The main things missing from what Out of Bounds offers are the obvious things like the lobby system, the need to sign up for tournaments in advance of their start time, and the smaller room size of 16 players in a match at once. That means that you’ll just see a list of events to join, so you can look for events that are filling up or join an empty, though you can create your own room for friends to join, as well. The only means of chat is choosing comments that the game offers before the start of the game and between holes. Doing well in online play can offer up new wardrobe pieces and other perks, so if you’re hard-up for more clothing, the online links are the place to be.

The wardrobe is the main addictive piece of Open Tee 2, which is why there are so many ways to collect new clothing. Other than the online and challenge modes mentioned above, you can also find new things on the courses themselves and in the lone mini-game in the game. While you’re playing a round, you may notice a twinkling light, which is some special item you can pick-up or a person who may require you have a special item or certain character to earn a surprise from them if you use your camera controls to reach them. It rewards those that aren’t too busy rushing through rounds to explore the holes environments a bit. The main downside to Open Tee 2 has to be the lack of the advanced shot mode Out of Bounds offered, so if you’re used to that particular shot mode, you’ll take a few rounds to get used to the standard shot mode.

Open Tee 2 certainly doesn’t set graphical standards like the big PSP games that came before it this year, but it certainly does well enough to improve a bit over the first game’s graphics. The nice variety in items that the cards provide are great, letting you create some interesting characters with the four slots you’re allotted for each character that you play extensively enough with them. The holes look good though the lack of the whole course design of Out of Bounds, which allowed for some interesting strategies, but some of the hole designs do allow for shortcuts if you’re skilled enough to judge how the wind will affect your shot. One of the courses included in the game is taken from Out of Bounds, so those that have played it will be familiar when it pops up during the challenge mode. Load times haven’t really been improved much at all, which would’ve been nice to see with the three years’ difference between the two PSP games.

The audio offerings in Open Tee 2 are pretty much standard offering for the series. It’s a big disappointment to not have custom soundtracks for this game, like the last MLB game from Sony, to push that particular feature for these games where the music’s not of great importance to the enjoyment of the game. Otherwise, all the jingles, sound effects, and ambient course sounds sound just like every other Hot Shots Golf game.

Despite not much in the way of new, groundbreaking stuff in Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2, it certainly leans more towards the good side of the more of the same sequel fence. New dress-up options, the new online mode, and the standard new courses and characters should be enough for most Open Tee owners to upgrade to the sequel. New PSP owners that never touched the first game should definitely put up the $10 extra for more of everything that the first had. Now that we’ve gotten two Hot Shots Golf games out within a year’s time, it’s time for Clap Hanz to push the series forward in all of its offerings before thinking about coming back with just more of the same.

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More