This isn't your grandpa's game of golf.
Unlike traditional simulations and other arcade-stylized affairs that utilize 3D game engines and realistic-looking courses, Super Stickman Golf recasts the slow-paced sport as a side-scrolling platform game of sorts. But despite the obvious change in design, it very much retains the core essence of playing golf: use your judgment, power, and available equipment as efficiently as possible to get the ball in the hole.
Granted, real-life golf doesn't employ balls that immediately drop at your direction, or sticky balls that attach to walls (or walls at all, for that matter), but that's part of the allure of this oddly captivating 2D affair. Guiding your ball to the hole is as simple as lining up a shot with the virtual buttons and determining the power, but the many inventive courses mean the simplicity stops right about there.
The nine-hole course designs are not only visually striking, but also quite challenging, packing peaks, mazes, and upward climbs amidst the greens, sand bunkers, and water hazards. And while you can stick with the standard, no-frills ball and grind through the challenging stages, you'll need to employ the various special balls -- including a do-over mulligan ball and a superpowered shot -- to even consider under-par scores on the more advanced levels.
After playing hours of single-player matches at a fevered pace, we found Super Stickman Golf to be a pretty excellent original iOS offering, packed with a ton of well-made and thoroughly entertaining content. But the online and local wireless multiplayer options present an entirely different -- and unexpectedly tense -- way to experience the action. It almost feels like two different games, but really, it just makes the campaign levels feel like training for the online action. And you'll need it to match up against the Game Center diehards.
Super Stickman Golf's online matches swap strokes for speed -- here it's no longer a matter of reaching the goal with the fewest shots, but rather reaching the hole first. Once the timer ticks away and the match begins, you and up to three others begin a rapid volley of shots -- with a large number of special balls available to all -- in the hopes of notching the win, and whoever finishes the course with the most victories takes the crown. It's a shockingly effective twist on the standard rules of golf, and one that results in perhaps the most intense game of virtual links ever designed. As such, it's no surprise that Super Stickman Golf is quickly becoming an iOS multiplayer sensation, and the polished app is universal, so it works on both iPhone and iPad.
The bottom line. Golf's traditionally turgid pace may put some off the real-life game, but this fast, inventive, and thoroughly entertaining take on the sport wows with excellent single-player sessions and even better multiplayer duels.
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iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 3.1 or later
Sharp side-scrolling take on the sport with alluring and wide-ranging stage designs. Single-player matches reward strategy and planning, while multiplayer battles are fierce and fast-paced. Universal app with 29 distinct nine-hole courses.
Notching under-par scores to unlock later courses can be extremely difficult.
Simson70
March 06, 2012 at 11:22pm
nice review about super stickman golf. I enjoyed reading this, thanks for sharing with us. now enjoy golf game with bogolf.com
