Mani Golf

Mani Golf – Crazy golf at its craziest!

For those of us who find golf just a little too serious for its own good, we have crazy golf. For those who find the rather lame challenges provided by the usual windmill and inanimate objects a crazy golf course provides, there’s Mani Golf.

I’m almost loathed to use the often overused terms like ‘off the wall’ and ‘zany’ but this golfing game is definitely an unexpected and very amusing find in the Appstore.

As with golf, you have a par for each hole. Some of the challenges aren’t that oddball to begin with, in fact they are simply to show you the ropes, but no sooner are you able to judge distance with the power to use and the angle to apply, you are confronted with some of the trickiest challenges applied to golf.

Everything from bouncy mushrooms, rickety ramps, dinosaur fossils, oil slicks and platforms are just some of the variety of objects to overcome or use to your advantage. You swiftly become aware that there is almost always more than one way to approach each hole. If you apply a bit of puzzle solving and a modicum of luck and a pinch of skill, you might just pull off a hole in one.

At the end of each course you are awarded for the amount of time you spent on each hole as well as the number of strokes. You receive a bronze medal for a birdie (one under par), silver for an eagle (two under par) and gold for an albatross (three under par).

What makes this game nudge into the very playable and amusing category is that it doesn’t seem to take itself nor you too seriously. Indeed, Gaylord Mulligan (the character you play with) says some witty things or just cracks up laughing when you play a poor shot.

The best way to describe this game is to think of the game Worms and apply it to the golf course (except clearly the balls aren’t explosive).

There’s only a couple of small niggles I would say let this title down a bit. The main one is the controls do sometimes have a mind of their own as you may need to zoom in and out to guesstimate the shot but it could easily end up with you taking a shot if you’re not lucky. Similarly the angle and power of the shot can be quite hard to get right when you’re tucked up in a corner – as this means that pulling back your swing and getting the angle right may be impossible as you can’t get enough power on the shot. However, this shouldn’t really put you off too much as this helps make the game challenging and unpredictable.

Ultimately, if you like a bit of a giggle and fancy a challenging round of crazy golf then don’t look much further than this game.

Rating 75%

Positives

Very entertaining

Pretty addictive

Lots of challenging holes to keep you occupied

Negatives

The cartoon-like appearance may not be to everyone’s liking

The controls aren’t that great some of the time

Courses range from ridiculously easy to the near impossible