N-Philes

Earlier this year I was wandering around the mall and thinking to myself how stagnant my GameCube collection had become. "Self," I thought, "your GameCube collection has become mighty stagnant. Perhaps you should look into buying a new game." I continued to traipse around the mall with no real destination in mind and eventually entered KayBee Toys, bastion of all things overpriced. I was attracted by their overly large advertisements on some sort of game closeout sale and was compelled to investigate. Enter: Outlaw Golf. $14.99 later, I held in my sweaty little palms a copy of a golf game panned by most critics to be a shade above mediocre, a title which would nonetheless steal quite a few of my afternoons in the coming months.


Outlaw Golf is by no means a spectacular game, but there's no law dictating that a game must be spectacular to provide mindless entertainment. It becomes immediately obvious upon turning on the system with the disc popped in that the normal boundaries of golf have been thrown out the window, and in their place none have been erected. There's the Tiger Woods-esque thumbstick style swing meter, but the lower right corner features a "Composure Meter," a bar that drops when you screw up and rises when you play well. This is well and good until you realize that how well you play depends on the status of your Composure, and so when you do poorly, the game makes you play worse. There's a method to this madness, however, and that lies in your caddy. Occasionally during the game you'll be awarded a beating token that you can cash in for an opportunity to beat your caddy into submission and regain composure. Charming.


The game sports three different courses and a total of 10 golfers, golfers that the word "eccentric" doesn't even begin to describe. There's El Suave and El Ramone, the most stereotypical Spaniards to grace a video game console since Speedy Gonzales. Among the other players are Harley and Snake, two middling-age bike enthusiasts, and the most dynamic lesbian golfers to play the game, Summer and Autumn. If the possibility of golfing lesbians doesn't increase your desire to play this tenfold, you probably won't appreciate the humor of the commentator, The Daily Show's Steve Carrell.


As I said, Outlaw Golf didn't win any awards, mainly because it didn't set out to break any new ground in the already Hot Shots and Tiger Woods dominated video game golf genre. It is, however, a great game to get together with 2 or 3 friends to play over an afternoon and laugh at, as the game is both easy to pick up and play and full of hilarious and well-done voice acting. This, combined with the fact that it's easily found at many places today for under $20, makes it one of my favorite sleeper titles for the GameCube.