'Albatross', 'Eagle', 'Birdie', 'Par' and 'Bogey' - the golfing's terminology's certainly confusing to Joe Public. But never fear, 'coz Mark "Slazenger" Caswell's here to attempt an explanation of the finer points of a game where the 19th hole's the most important.
Apart from being a legendary golfer and having a very silly nickname (The Golden Bear), Jack Nicklaus is also a dab hand at designing golf courses. To prove this, 18 of his favourite holes have been bolted together to make a very playable golfing game.
Up to four humans can participate, with an additional computer opponent ready to whup your ass if required.
A massive range of options includes two difficulty levels, stroke or matchplay. practice mode, driving range and practice green. There are two courses to choose from: Castle Pines and Desert Mountain.
Make your choices and it's onto the first hole. After a map view of the hole and a helpful hint from Jack, your golfer's shown at the tee. To the left is the power bar with various info below (number of hole, distance left to go, par, etc). You can also adjust your aim and the type of the club used. It only remains to select a club, whizz the power bar into the red and whop the ball into orbit (mind that satellite, matey).
It strikes me the old Zzap team were a bunch of moaning minnies: in my opinion Jack Nicklaus is worth a lot more than the 55% they awarded it in Issue 51.
In their defence though, there were a lot of golfing games around at the time, not to mention the almost legendary Leader Board. Nowadays there aren't many new ball-whacking games about, so the field's open.
Anyway, Jack Nicklaus is just my cup of tee (tee hee!). Graphically, the game's slightly blocky, but that's not too much of a pain in the posterior. What is pretty bad is the update time between screens, and the almost deafening silence. Hence, I thought I'd gone 'mutton Jeff' when I first started playing.
However, what really matters is playability, and that's where Jack Nicklaus scores high (or in golfing terms, should that be low?!). If you're tired of Leader Board, this is a good buy on budget. If you haven't got Leader Board, it's an excellent purchase. And all for four(!) quid...