Hole in One

New Star Soccer proved quite conclusively that you can make a game based around a sport without digitally replicating it. There's football in there, but it's a cut up, staccato football for the gamer on the go.

Hole in One tries to do the same for golf, and fails spectacularly, reducing an 18-hole course into a repetitive mush of occasional button-taps and fairground inaccuracy. This is golf built without any understanding of what makes golf games actually work.

A good walk ruined

There are two modes to drag yourself through, both of which play more like archery mini-games than the sport they're supposed to be recreating. The first, called Sure Shot, sees you pelting balls in the direction of a hole. That hole is surrounded by concentric circles, each marked with a points value.

Rather than choosing a club, setting your shot, selecting your power, and gracefully thwacking the ball in the vicinity of the flag, you're presented with a target that's identical to the one around the hole. Using your joystick or number buttons, you need to guide a cursor to the centre and then tap to shoot.

It feels like a re-skinned sniping game, but instead of taking potshots at despots you're shooting a golf ball 350 yards with your freakishly strong arms. It takes all of 30 seconds to become proficient enough at the game that you'll never want to play again.

Leaves a hole

The other mode is called Rapid Fire, and will likely bring back memories of halcyon days spent on the driving range frantically smashing ball after ball in any direction as they roll past on a conveyor belt. If Sure Shot is a sniping game, Rapid Fire is a machine gun simulator dressed in plaid trousers.

The backdrops to your golfing exploits never change, much like everything else the game has to offer. There's no variety, no ingenuity, and no push to keep you playing other than a vague, inconsequential leaderboard system.

Hole in One is an awful game that sucks any joy out of golf, then fills in the joy-shaped spaces left behind with a bastardisation of archery. Avoid this bizarre abomination at all costs.