PGA Golo Golf Dice Review
I’ve been a fan of the “real” PGA Golo Golf Dice game for a long time. The history of this is actually pretty interesting. About ten years ago PGA professional Patrick Shea invented the easy to play game and started selling it basically out of his car. Soon it took off and now can be found in many sporting and game stores. He’s even used the method to take on other sports (my favorite being the Nascar version).
Okay, history lesson aside, let’s take a look at the app.
In Golo you have nine dice. These represent the front (and later the back) nine of a golf course. You have five white dice that represent the Par 4 holes, two red dice for the Par 3’s, and aptwo blue dice for the Par 5’s. You start by rolling all nine dice and reading the numbers listed. This is what you scored on the hole.
Here the game follows the mechanics of several dice games. You get to keep the ones that you want and re-roll the others. Each roll you have to keep at least one die so there is a good bit of strategy as to whether you want to keep a “par” score or re-roll it and try to get a lower score.
Once you have all of the nine dice set you’re done with the front nine of the course and your score is recorded. Then you start over and play the back nine. Finish that round and you have your final score for 18 holes.
The game does a nice job of being just a little more than rolling dice. The graphics are fun and you’ll see little animations to go along with the rolls. Most of them involve a little gopher (ala Caddyshack). These are fun, but can get a little repetitive after many games. One little hint… you can touch the gopher when it’s laughing at you and bad things will happen to him.
There are three modes of play with the GOLO. You’ve got the basic Solo version, you can go up against a computer opponent, or you can go online and challenge the world.
The game play is solid and you can go through a round of golf in a matter of minutes. It’s a fun pick up and play and I’ve loved every second of it. But there are things I really wish would be added to the game.
First off, the challenge mode is good, but you can only challenge people that are on your list. I want something a little more like Baseball Slugger where you can find a real human anytime you want. The fact that you have to hope that one of your friends are online when you want to play is annoying, and it doesn’t give you that cool feeling of playing some random person in some random part of the world that Slugger does.
That being said, the game is also really missing out on a “Pass Around” option. This should have been an instant mode for the game. It would be so simple to replace the “computer” opponent with a friend sitting next to you and going from there. This is the only real area of the game that I can say I’m a little disappointed with. Hopefully it gets fixed quickly.
While I’m putting some things on my wish list for this game I’d like to add a tournament mode. Playing a round is nice, but it would be really cool to put four together and have a tournament. Now put this with the challenge mode and you’ve really got something. The Push element of the iPhone could be used to this and you could have tournaments with contestants all over the world. This could become huge.
Adding a few more features like these would really catapult this game up to the top of my play list.
PGA Golo Golf Dice is by far my favorite dice game on the app store… and has quickly become my favorite golf game. It’s only a few changes away from being my favorite game period. The addictive and quick play nature of the game make it perfect for times when I can’t be on the real course.
The Good
Quick & Addictive Play
Perfect For Golf Fans – AND Non-Fans As Well
Challenge Mode Is A Lot Of Fun
The Bad
Getting Challenges Is A Bit Of A… Challenge
Needs A “Tournament” Mode
Needs A “Pass Around” Mode
Price Might Scare Some Away
Related posts:
Category: Games
Definitely seems like an interesting dice-game. I’ll probably keep my eye on this one and likely wait for a price-drop…I can admit it.