Ever had a really disappointing trip
to the ice cream parlor?
Maybe you were just passing by when
you spotted it — the most majestic sundae you had ever seen. It looked amazing
on the menu; so colorful and fluffy, you could’ve mistaken it for a scoop of
heaven and not known the difference. Before a single drop of drool could drip,
you placed your order and fulfilled your delectable destiny.
It was a matter of logic, really. Made from delicious ingredients, how could that confectionary wonder be anything
less than a life-changing experience?
But it wasn’t. You remember, it
tasted like dullness and dismay churned into ice cream and topped with
disappointment-flavored sprinkles. Crave Entertainment’s King of Clubs
is a lot like that bad sundae, a strange case of promising parts coming together
for a terrible whole-in-one.
As the prior pun suggests, King of
Clubs is a miniature golf game developed for the Nintendo Wii. Like any sports
game that attempts one, its premise is absurd; an unsuccessful Elvis
impersonator inherits a fortune and inexplicably blows it on a miniature golf
course in the middle of a Nevada desert. He staffs it with fellow struggling
show business folk, and they compete to be the proverbial King of Clubs.
The story is moronic, but does
anyone really care? It’s not like a plumber saving a princess from evil turtles
is the epitome of Oscar-winning storytelling, either.
King of Clubs offers players 96
wacky holes of “putt-putt” scattered across five distinct cardboard-cutout
environments: prehistoric, ancient Egyptian, medieval, tropical and futuristic. The courses are also littered with crazy obstacles and gimmicks. Spinning
bumpers, accelerator panels, ramps, lava lakes and ice glaciers are just a few
of the hindrances standing between you and miniature golf glory.
Unfortunately, none of this
translates to any sort of fun. Good putt-putt courses aren’t enjoyable because
of gimmicks, obstacles or quantity alone, but because of the designs of the
courses themselves. While the courses in King of Clubs offer plenty of the
prior, their designs do not result in a fun miniature golf experience. More
often than not, they become tedious, and after only a few holes, their worst
aspect becomes apparent:
They’re just plain boring to
putt-putt on.
Even with lackluster course design,
King of Clubs might have been a decent game had it controlled well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. After adjusting your shot’s aim with the remote’s
directional pad, you press the A button to activate a power meter. By pulling
back the Wii remote, the strength of your swing adjusts; the further you pull
back, the harder your swing will be. Once you’ve reached a desired power level,
you again press A to lock the power meter and swing the remote forward to
complete your swing.
Sound overly complicated? That’s
because it is. Instead of utilizing the capabilities of the Wii remote,
developer Oxygen Games merely replaced button presses with remote swings. The
final swing itself illustrates this point; the speed with which you swing the
remote has no effect on the strength of your shot. The motion is merely a
substitution for a button press, and even worse, it’s not a particularly
responsive one. Neither pulling back or swinging forward with the remote is
recognized well by the game.
The worst Wii games are the ones in
which motion detection is actually detrimental to control and precision, and
unfortunately, King of Clubs falls under that category.
King of Clubs’ problems aren’t
entirely conceptual. Eccentric characters, gimmicky power-ups, dozens of holes
and loads of unlockable content show the foundation for a potentially
entertaining video game was laid. Rather, the problem is execution; to be more
specific, the problem is execution so poor as to render King of Clubs only
barely playable and almost completely void of enjoyment.
Dreadful execution bleeds throughout
the entirety of the game’s presentation. Even if you can deal with the bland
menus and pixelated shadows, King of Clubs is offensively ugly; if the low
polygon counts and lifeless character design don’t get a grimace out of you, the
hideously drab color palette will. These graphics would have been terrible even
by GameCube standards, and they are completely unacceptable on Wii.
To its credit, King of Clubs offers
offline multiplayer modes for up to four players that make the game at least a
little more enjoyable. While the entertainment value to be attained by watching
your friends struggle to figure out this game isn’t worth the price of
admission, it will make you feel better about wasting your money on it.
The final verdict on King of Clubs
is simple. Forget the unlockable content, power-up clubs, gimmick balls and
outrageous courses; these superficialities don’t even come close to changing the
fact that King of Clubs just isn’t any fun to play. Even at its modest
suggested retail price of $29.99, it would be an ill-advised purchase only the
most devout miniature golf aficionados — do they even exist? — should
consider.
Oxygen Games focused on all the
wrong aspects of putt-putt when it created King of Clubs, and in the process, it
missed the sort-of-a-sport’s most crucial ingredient: Fun.
Review Scoring Details for King of Clubs |
Gameplay: 4.0
King of Clubs is technically playable – the only compliment its gameplay
qualifies for.
Graphics: 3.0
If the low polygon counts and terrible character design don’t get a grimace
out of you, the drab and hideous color palette will. These graphics would have
been terrible even by GameCube standards, and they are completely unacceptable
on Wii.
Sound: 2.0
King of Clubs makes you thankful Benjamin Franklin invented the “mute”
button.
Difficulty: Medium
The courses are difficult because they’re so poorly designed, not because
the King of Clubs is actually challenging. The game also claims a hole-in-one
is possible on every hole. You could also get struck by lightning while playing
it, or throw the game out the window after a few hours. One of those three
possibilities is most probable.
Concept: 1.0
Out-of-work actors poorly playing miniature golf in the desert. Seriously?
Multiplayer: 4.0
This is the game’s only redeemable quality. The entertainment value to be
attained by watching your friends struggle to figure out this game isn’t worth
the price of admission, but it will make you feel better about wasting your
money on it.
Overall: 3.0
It’s simple, really. King of Clubs just isn’t any fun to play, and in an
industry obsessed with making money at the consumers’ expense and developing
safe-bet hit software, developers would do well to take note: video games should
be fun.
