Krazy Golf

Hello and welcome to the Final Round of the Defunct Games Golf Club. For the fourth and last time, I am tackling eighteen retro golf games. For full details on why I've been doing this, watch this YouTube video created last year. Now, my picks have not been limited to pro golf games. Every variation on the theme of whacking a ball toward a hole has been considered, including miniature golf. Considering the pathetic nature of Miniature Golf on the Atari 2600, I didn't have high hopes when I booted up Krazy Golf on the ZX Spectrum (also known as Crazy Golf). However, I found plenty of fun in this 35-year-old relic to counteract the aged design and other annoyances.

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In terms of the basic design, Krazy Golf is similar to its Atari 2600 ancestor. You have nine very basic holes with very basic mechanics used to navigate them. There are no moving hazards to worry about in this game. However, the challenge comes from the more intricate course designs. While the visuals are in a smaller window box rather than fullscreen for who-knows-what reason, there is much more detail with sharp angles and even some bumpers guarding a couple of the holes. Controls are a bit more complex, using six keys total for adjusting power and angle as well as shooting. It works well enough but has issues. You're limited to sixteen angles for aiming which can be problematic for a few of the holes with thin paths and round obstacles. The space bar is mapped as a "give up" button which is actually necessary due to occasional glitches. I actually had one shot go through a wall and out of the course with no way to get back in. I also have a real problem with the lack of multiplayer here. Sure, it would have been a big to-do with having three other players huddled around the keyboard, but it just seems wrong to release a golf game of any kind without multiplayer.

The Spectrum was limited with its color palette, but it works here. Every hole switches its backing color, eliminating the kind of visual fatigue one can get from the earlier game. The sounds are just the basic blips that one would expect from a game this old that, surprisingly, never get annoying, even with frequent shot ricochets.

Krazy Golf is an okay basic mini-golf game. It took what the Atari 2600 did with the earlier game and pumped it up significantly. That said, it would still have very limited appeal to those who didn't grow up in the second gen era, and the glitches can try the patience of whoever's left in that small audience. However, I still had some fun with it. The ZX Spectrum scored par with this one.