Personal Compuer Games


Birdie Barrage
By Computasolve
BBC Model B

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #5

Birdie Barrage

You might think from the title that this is an exercise in getting splattered by flocks of pigeons. No such luck. It's just a golf simulation.

Golf is a difficult game to convert to a micro, and this version is a little unconvincing. At each hole you are presented with a bland picture depicting fairway, rough, water, bunkers and of course the green. You have to choose a club by typing in its number and then select the angle and power of the shot, taking into account the wind direction.

So far so good. But when you actually hit a key to play the shot, all you see is the ball moving to its new position and stopping. No little man swinging a club, no bounces, no cheering crowd.

Birdie Barrage

You repeat the procedure until your ball arrives on the green, whereupon the picture changes to a disappointing close-up view: just a green expanse with hole and ball marked.

Putting is purely a matter of selecting angle and strength of shot - there are no slopes to take into account and no squatting down behind the ball to impress spectators.

The computer does of course keep a record of your number of shots and whether you're knocking in birdies or bogies. And with a little practice it's certainly possible to improve your scores dramatically.

Unfortunately the skills involved are in getting familiar with the program's responses rather than anything particularly to do with golf.

CA

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