Let's get this out of the way immediately: Zoo Disc Golf is a game that should not be played by anyone under any circumstances. Zoo animals playing disc golf may sound like a pretty awesome idea, but Zoo Disc Golf is a mess from top to bottom. It takes your ten dollars, chews it up, regurgitates it and spits back at you one of the worst WiiWare games to date.
Disc golf is essentially golf, only with a flying disc instead of a golf ball. Generally it’s a simpler game to play and is a lot easier to get the hang of, and this is probably the best aspect of Zoo Disc Golf: it’s easier to play than a regular golf game. But that doesn’t make it fun. Actually, the game is completely unenjoyable, which is unforeseen considering that the concept of zoo animals playing disc golf is golden.
To play Zoo Disc Golf you must possess a large amount of patience or you'll get very frustrated, very quickly. It’s not a difficult game in the sense that the developer made it challenging, it’s difficult because the gameplay is utter garbage. The aiming is done with the D-Pad and when your animal is set, holding the B trigger will ready it for throwing. Swinging the Wii Remote at different angles and speeds will give you different results all depending on how well you swung. Everything seems fine until you actually start, then it completely falls apart.
The aiming never shows you a general area of where your disc is going to land, the throwing never senses your swing accurately resulting in many missed throws, and the whole experience is miserable because the physics never work properly. The event of throwing the disc seems totally random, like the game isn’t calculating your angle and speeds properly; Wii Motion Plus would have been a life saver since it would sense your motions more accurately, but even then the game is so poorly designed that even a real zoo animal would be able to throw better than you.
It never helps when the game’s feature set is lousy, too. You can play the same course over and over again suffering through the broken gameplay by yourself, but your friends and family can also join the party as the game supports up to four players. Yes – you and three of your friends can face off in a zoo animal disc golf party to see who’s best! But then that’s it: that’s all you can do. It keeps your score after every game but why bother? There’s no online leaderboards or anything, just your own satisfaction of putting up with the bogus gameplay and wasted money you could’ve spent at a real zoo.
Visually the game is an eyesore to the extent that it looks like a Nintendo 64 game from ten years ago. Indeed, some of the best looking Nintendo 64 games out-class it. Flat, blurry textures round out the ugly course design and the animal designs look like deformed versions of their real-life counterparts, albeit with a mildly endearing cartoon appearance. The frame rate surprisingly holds up pretty well astonishingly, but still slows from time to time and the load times certainly aren't the quickest, either. Audio-wise, Zoo Disc Golf is also dreadful: when you think of generic music you don’t think that it could get this bad, but it does.
Conclusion
Nearly every facet of Zoo Disc Golf’s execution is completely broken: the controls are fidgety and inaccurate, the game’s presentation is some of the worst on Wii and it does all of this while being completely unenjoyable. There’s absolutely nothing noteworthy to speak of other than to unconditionally avoid it, especially for 1,000 Wii Points.
Comments 34
"Zoo animals playing disc golf may sound like a pretty awesome idea"
Ummm, not so much. I could have guessed at the outcome, just by reading this line. And I did.
I still don't quite understand how something this 'broken' could pass Nintendo QA. Answers on a postcard?
Stuff like this worries me. If we keep seeing releases like this, how will Nintendo hold up in the future of downloadable content? From what I've been hearing, they're likely going to expand on it... But they need to see some changes in the quality control department.
"wasted money you could’ve spent at a real zoo"
As long as I don't buy any food, I could go to the St. Louis Zoo for free. I won't, since I think zoos are almost as boring as this game appears to be, but I could.
1000 points for every star. I agree with #2
Ugh. Guess I 'll stick with Wii Sports Resort and real life Disc Golf.
I'm saving my points for Dragon Master Disc Golfer anyway.
Or maybe Niki: Disc N Golf
Did we get a new reviewer around here? Don't mean to put a downer on someone here, but the written quality of the review is about as bad as the game it's reviewing.
"Audio-wise, Zoo Disc Golf is also dreadful: when you think of generic music you don’t think that it could get this bad, but it does." I had to read this 5 times before it made sense.
Also comma splicing. Real bad case of comma splicing going on here.
So, terrible game gets a fair but badly-written review. Sorry NL, this isn't up to your normal standards.
Darn, I was hoping for a zero.
So basically ill have more fun changin my sons poopy diaper, thanks for the heads up =)
One?! One!? That is awesome!
I knew the developers must be on the wrong track when I saw that they can neither count nor distinguish entirely different species of bird.
Another 1/10... this is why most of my money is going to XBLA these days. This week WiiWare gets this gem, Reel Fishing 2 (which does not interest me in the least) and Lead the Meerkats (another game on my "most likely not buying list"). Whereas XBLA got Earthworm Jim HD and Neo Geo Battle Colliseum, both games are awesome and priced the same as this piece of work. C'mon Nintendo, back in the day your Seal of Quality actually meant something. Now I'm starting to lose faith...
I can't even comprehend how is it possible that framerate can slow down in a game that looks graphically 10 years old.
@12: Hilarious! Your comment gets a well deserved 9/10 Stars!
@warioswoods Zing!
@ Raylax: Seriously? It made perfectly sense to me the first time I read it...
With 1000 points you could buy 5 G&W games on DSiWare. wut? They think this game is worth 5 G&W's?! THEY CRRRAZY!
Wow... That's just disgusting! How can any game developer get lower than this piece of rubbish?
@warioswoods: You, sir, are epic!
@Raylax: Made perfect sense to me first time I read it...
I do however agree that in some places there needed to be a comma but there weren't any, making it sound/read kind of strange...
NL need to Quality Control their reviews, and N need to Quality Control their games.
@jararr.... you actually play too? Me and my wife are playing in a tournament this weekend. We have 10 courses near where i live, its a great time.
@ Wario..... that's really funny
I wonder how many "furries" (however you define them) would buy this?
@Raylax: I didn't think it was bad, personally. But I admit that that segment you mentioned could have been worded a little better (in addition to one other part), but that's all part of learning and improving later on. Nobody's perfect.
@pHaT-aNt_: Hm, my thoughts exactly. I know they're supposed to help developers get their titles out there but c'mon. Authorizing it to go out like this just says to me something to the effect of "You guys aren't going to succeed and we want to see you fail".
I still can't believe this game is 1,000 Wii Points... I hope they weren't the ones to suggest that price to Nintendo because if so, they killed whatever possibilities there were of this even remotely succeeding. And certainly, the fact that this review labels it as one of the worst games for the system doesn't help either. I mean, I can appreciate that this is their very first game on a console and they can certainly learn from this experience, but still...
Anywho, welcome if this is a new reviewer.
Yes, guys, Andrew is the new kid on the block. If anyone has any further comments about his writing style, i suggest they be worded politely. Welcome him to NL, don't drive him away plz :3
I congratulate Andrew for still being able to form sentences after playing that game...
Ha ha, don't worry about it guys. I appreciate all constructive criticism!
And yes, I probably should've used a better sentence for what I trying to say.
Yay, more shovelware!
@bulby33 "better sentence for what I trying to say."
My constuctive critiscm: "better sentence for what I'm / I am trying to say."
I'm sorry, but I'm a grammar snob... =3
Hmm, it seems NL can be a bit harsh on their reviews at times, but after considering it for a moment, I probably wouldn't get this game if it had received a 1 or a 5. Congrats on confirming my assumptions about the game.
Eh...I'm still not done with Tiger Woods '10. That game has an incredible disc golf mode in it, WITH MOTIONPLUS SUPPORT!! I don't see why I would need this crap.
@xDemon720x
for being a grammar slob, you don't seem to realize that changing tense in the middle of a sentence is a huge no-no. The proper way would be "...for what I was trying to say"
@xDemon720x
That was one dumb mistake of mine! lol
Yeah sorry @Bulby33, shoulda worded that a little less harshly. But I stand by what I said, mind your wording in places
Welcome to NL, at any rate~
@grenworthshero I believe that you meant to say "snob" rather than "slob".
Welcome to NLife, Andrew!
I loved the first paragraph.
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