Miniature Golf (2600)

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scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Miniature Golf (2600)

Postby scotland » December 12th, 2016, 7:15 am

I was recently gifted a copy of this game. Whenever those discussions come up on how bad E.T. was or wasn't, I offer exhibit M for the defense, Miniature Golf, by Atari, 1979. Programmed by Tom Reuterdahl, an early Atari programmer, and this may have been his Magnum Opus...or his only Opus, from what I can gather.

Not to be mean, but this game is so primitive its hard to see how it passed muster for release. Even for VCS graphics, everything is a block. I don't want to hear any Odyssey 2 jokes...we had circles from the get go. However, we can be forgiving of graphics, but the gameplay! Okay, there are only 2 things to do - pick a direction to hit, and pull the club back as far as you need to to get the power on the swing. Problem being that the wall block your club. Oh, the manual has a helpful hint about moving the club anywhere, but its not much help. You often have to slam the ball into a wall to richochet it in something like the proper direction.

There are only 9 holes. That's Mini even for Mini Golf. This is one of the games Atari pulled in 1979, along with Star Ship (another contender for worst 2600 game). One begins to see why. It also cleared the course for Atari Golf to be released, which is much the same idea but far better. In Golf, direction and power are controlled with the golfer and his club, and it worked far better. (Another idea for Miniature Golf would have been to hold the fire button longer for more power, so that not being able to pull the club past a wall would not have been an issue, or allow the club to wrap around the screen)

Anyone else played this?

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LuckyMan
Posts: 108
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:32 pm

Re: Miniature Golf (2600)

Postby LuckyMan » December 12th, 2016, 2:13 pm

Strangely, I kind of like this game. Maybe it's because I love playing real miniature golf so much. Sure, the graphics and the control are bad. Actually that's not completely fair. It's difficult to position the cursor, but once you hit the ball it usually behaves in a somewhat predictable manner. I also like the Miniature Golf Plus hack: http://atariage.com/hack_page.php?SystemID=2600&SoftwareHackID=101

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Atariboy
Posts: 956
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:07 pm

Re: Miniature Golf (2600)

Postby Atariboy » December 12th, 2016, 7:19 pm

I actually enjoy it a lot as well.


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