PGA European Tour

Bon jour, golf fans! Pack your clubs for a tour of five of Europe's most challenging golf courses with EA Sports' PGA European Tour for the Genesis. Using the same, easy-to-play game engine as PGA Tour Golf, plus sharp graphics and extensive detail, this game is accessible to golf die-hards and novices alike.

Europe or Bust

On this tour, up to four players compete for pounds, liras, and francs on five actual courses (two in England and one each in Spain, France, and Switzerland). In addition to playing your friends, you can also compete against 50 European pros, with recognizable names like Seve Ballesteros. Their performances are continually tracked by the computer. Two new game formats include an Elimination Tournament and a four-player Sudden Death hole.

Where's the Windmill?

Just like EA Sports' other titles, PGA European Tour is as realistic a golf simulation as you can get. You have full control of which clubs to use, how hard to hit the ball, and how to line up your shot. Responsive controls enable you to get the most out of your skills. Adding to the realism are uncontrollable variables, including gusting winds and uneven terrain.

Sharp graphics provide three useful views: overhead bird's-eye; behind-the-player; and a rotating, 180-degree, topographical grid of the putting green. Every option is represented by easy-to-read onscreen icons. These solid graphics help compensate for the game's average, lackluster sounds.

Viva la PGA

While golf can sometimes be an uninvolving game to watch or play, this video game is perhaps the most user-friendly, engaging golf sim available. After a couple of rounds, you'll discover the subtleties that make golf such a challenge. Golf fans will love this game, and curious novices will be able to jump right in and play.

This may sound biased, but golf is a dull and boring sport which is about as much fun to watch as paint drying [nah, no bias there – Ed.]. To play it can be fun, but is more often than not frustrating. Why is it, then, that when a computer game comes along with the perfect opportunity to liven up the monotony of the real game, you get a perfect conversion?

This wouldn't be so bad if you had some famous names to shout insults at, but instead, EPGA Golf is full of European stars who nobody has ever heard of. The game isn't exactly doing the tournament any favours either by not including any crowds of spectators! Does nobody watch EPGA? There's quite a difference between playing against Nick Faldo and somebody called Fredrick Lindgren. There just isn't quite the same sense of achievement when you thrash an unknown at the final hole.

Comedy Trousers

Having said that, progressing through the rankings in an EPGA tournament is no easy task, and for once this isn't because of a dodgy control system. By holding down the C Down button you can more or less decide where you want the ball to go through the air. Of course this fictional line will be tainted somewhat by wind and your own skill on the trigger finger, but it does make planning your shot easier. You don't get this line in Advanced mode, but you can still get a rough idea of where the ball is going.

With a quick tap of another button you can also select virtually any club and any type of shot you want. This includes backspin, punch shots, high pitches, lob and so on. Where this game really goes above par, though, is with the putting system, which is far too easy. In Standard mode, with the guiding line on the green, it is more or less impossible to miss a single putt! Once you get a feel for the controls, it is recommended you switch over to Advanced mode to test your skills.

Three Elbows

The biggest disappointment in this game is the animation. A golf game, especially one with only four courses, can't take up too much space on a cart, so you might expect attention to detail. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. At times the animation on the players when they aren't playing makes them look like pieces of jelly. It can't be possible for an arm to have that many joints! Something else you usually get in a golf game is the animation of the swing as you control the meter. In EPGA, however, your player doesn't hit the ball until after you've nervously tried to stop the speeding bar on the small line.

What this means is that you just don't feel as connected to the game, but instead get a cut-scene of sorts. The weather effects and the graphics in general are all decent enough, but there just isn't enough attention to detail. Most noticeably you don't get any flying divots and, perhaps more seriously, no sand sprays in the bunkers. This is a fun-to-play game, but because of the lack of detail it's a little too repetitive.

A Bug's Life was a great film, one of those 'fun for all ages' jobs that left a big smile on your face at the end. Unfortunately, the N64 game of A Bug's Life is only likely to leave a smile on your face when you turn it off.

The game is a platform adventure which at least vaguely follows the plot of the film – Flik the ant has to find help to save his colony from the evil grasshopper horde led by Hopper. It even has some original ideas – Flik has to use various types of seed to grow plants (and, er, mushrooms, which is quite a trick) in order to proceed through the levels and defeat enemies. However, whereas in the film Flik was a peaceable fellow who used brain instead of brawn to sort out Hopper, in the game he's a rampaging psychopath who slaughters his way through the levels, killing every non-ant lifeform he encounters. Walt Disney must be spinning in his cryogenic chamber!

The main problem with A Bug's Life is that it's very repetitive, most of the game revolving around finding and planting seeds while fending off attackers. It's also annoying to play, being worryingly jerky and featuring an awful lot of pop-up. Even if you argue that the game is meant for younger players, it's easy to see that they're not going to put up with the tedious gameplay for long. When you think how good the film was, A Bug's Life is a real let-down.

PGA Tour '96 Scored A Whopping 94 percent when we reviewed it way back in November. Not only did it sport drop-dead gorgeous graphics as well as a very user-friendly interface (phew), but it introduced the infamous 'waggle' feature and two quite splendid new courses - TPC at Avenal. and Spyglass Hill. In fact the only fly in the ointment/black crisp in the packet/nice table, but too near the kitchen, was that it was full of Americans.

Not the type of Yank who talks really loud, mispronounces every syllable and wears garish shirts, but the kind who thinks that when the photographer says "Cheese" they should make like one of the Brady Bunch and pull an expression akin to those found in Fstate Agents Year Books. Most had a pretty hot swing however, and would whip your bottom as soon as look at you. For the die-hard Yanko-phile the only real enjoyment was playing as them, but doing your utmost to make them miss the easiest of shots... then you could have the pleasure of watching them squirm at their hopeless ineptitude - sheer golfing bliss.

New and improved?

Well, not quite... it's more like 'new and the same as before', except that it's now chock-full of European golfers and there are three new courses to choose from: Wentworth, Gut Kaden (Germany) and last but not least, The K Club (Ireland). And not a Yank in sight.

PGA European Tour still looks gorgeous, it plays extremely well and the presentation is. of course, immaculate. There's fmv footage of each course, 'glowing' profiles of the individual players, lots of cheesy music, 'waggle', nice fly-bys of each hole, pips aplenty - and this time round it even features a rather staid commentary by Peter Allis.

Apart from the new commentary however, it's pretty much business as usual. Sure you can play as or against Bernard Langer or Monty (sadly there's no Seve or Faldo - they have their own separate licenses) and there's three new courses to hack around, but that really is it. PGA European Tour is a full-price, standalone product, so if you already own PGA Tour 96 you probably won't want to fork out another forty odd quid on what is basically the same game, especially when HA Sports have also just released a course disk for PGA Tour '96 known as Spanish Bay for around half the price (see our panel above).

Question time...

Bearing all this in mind, it's really a question of asking yourself how much you love playing PGA. If you already own PGA Tour '96 your money might be better spent on the course disk (unless you really and truly can't abide the bloody Americans). On the other hand, if you're looking for a new feature-packed golf game, then PGA Huropean Tour must come highly recommended.

Try really hard and you can smell the grass and feel the breeze when you play PGA European Tour. Well, maybe not, but EA's new links sim offers very realistic golf in the line of the first two PGA Tour games. It's even accurate down to the frustration you experience when you play poorly.

Fans of EA's earlier clubhouse cartridges will find this one structured much the same, but, as the name indicates, a change of setting offers a whole new challenge. Even the seasoned veteran will feel the demands of five European courses and their respective tournaments. Ten European pros - the likes of Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer - and 50 new roster players try to keep you off the leader-board. After all, this is for cold, hard cash (in pounds of course; the Scots did invent the game, after all).

But if you're not ready to take on the heavy hitters, there's still plenty of opportunity to get out on the links. Brush up with a practice round, play a home version of the Skins game, challenge up to seven friends in a match-play elimination tournament, or pit up to four players in a three-hole sudden-death shootout. Compatibility with EA's 4 Way Play insures your foursome's never again denied a tee time, no matter how much you annoy the other country-club members.

Solid controls, clean graphics, and dead-on sound effects make your round enjoyable... unless your golf game determines otherwise. Eventually, though, the shots all start to look the same no matter what hole you're on. Less patient gamers may not want to make their way through a full 72-hole tournament. If you have enough patience however to play golf - or watch it - you should thoroughly enjoy this one.

Welcome to PGA European Tour - the game that allows you to enter the most prestigious tournament in golf. Now it challenges you to tee off on five of the most beautiful courses in Europe.

The game play is the same from the original PGA carts, but the added features of PGA European Tour will definitely have golf fanatics gassing up their golf carts on this one. Besides the tournament, you have the option of playing a skins game, match play or even a shootout! If you think you have what it takes to go against 61 of the best golfers in the world, grab your caddy and hit the greens, European style.

THE GOOD

The match play, shoot-out and skins game make this an excellent golf cart. Great sound!

THE BAD

If you're looking for a major change of game play from the earlier versions of PGA, there's not much.

THE UGLY

The ugly would have to be the competitiveness of the other golfers-they don't cut you any slack!