Eagle Eye Golf

It's hard to be the new kid in town. Aksys Games has only existed for little more than a decade, but they gained a solid following thanks to games like the Zero Escape trilogy, Deathsmiles, and especially the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series. With all those smashes under their belts, would anyone ever suspect that they began with a golf game? Eagle Eye Golf was the first game Aksys released, and though it got little attention at the time due to the release of the Playstation 3, it proved to be a sign of the greatness to come. For the most part, at least.

Eagle Eye Golf appears to be very generic on the surface. The stock character models are blocky, have little personality, and have terribly stilted voices. The starting courses, while colorful and well-built, aren't all that distinct. Most of the game modes are the standards that every golf game was expected to have by 2006. None of those elements are bad by any means; they just don't stick out.

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Diving head-first reveals how great the game truly is. The analog swing mechanics work great. Having meters onscreen was a great decision to make the mechanics more user-friendly. There is enough of a margin of error to limit frustration without making the game feel like a cakewalk. The green reading is a little finicky, but it never felt like I was being cheated. The game plays very well.

The options are through the roof! The game places a heavy emphasis on customization. Alongside the generic characters that the game provides, custom characters can also be created. More custom parts and gear can be earned by playing tournaments and missions, providing a hook to come back. Characters level up through play, even the custom characters.

Of course, the biggest plus for me personally is the course creator. Eagle Eye Golf is one of only two PS2 golf games that allows the creation of full courses from the ground up. Unlike the cumbersome course creator in ProStroke Golf, the tools provided are incredibly simple to use, and there are lots of pieces to work with. Courses can't be as unrealistic as some of the creations in The Golf Club, but I got some very good results working with it.

Eagle Eye Golf is a game that gets better the deeper you get into it. It's a shame that it released barely a month before the PS3's launch and ended up largely ignored. It didn't help that it provided a very generic first impression. However, it is one of the strongest golf games on the PS2 outside the Hot Shots Golf and Tiger Woods games. Aksys' first attempt in the video game business scored a Birdie.