Giveaway of the Day - Mini Golf Championship

Today’s giveaway is approximately 24Mb in size that unzips to a read me and a combined activation and set up module. Once installed the file takes up 134MBb of space.
The game was given away back in July 2007 where it received 86% of 290 votes. You can check out the 120 comments that were made by following the link below. In particular comments # 24, 25, 47 (re: Vista compatibility), #19, 31, 32, 35, 76 102(General information) #37 & 62 (re: free indio codec) #63, 73, 77, 103* (hitting the ball) and #116 (unlocking new courses)

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/mini-golf-championship/#comments

The Game:
The game offers 72 holes separated into four themed courses, starting with the water course. To progress onto new courses you must beat the 18 holes from the previous course. These new courses are hidden from view in the Match Settings menu until you have accomplished that.

You can adjust specific parameters of the game such as sound and music by going into the options menu. Here you can also toggle off the sound and a higher graphics quality toggle. There are several screen resolutions to choose from in this menu as well. Once you are satisfied with the set up, return to the main menu and click on start game, which will take you to the Match settings menu, from here you can select three different playing options, single player, human v human and human v computer as well as three difficulty settings, Beginner, Master and Expert. These difficulty settings are only applicable to the computer v human option, though once selected will remain if you change to one of the other modes of playing.

When starting a match you can choose to play a training session or a full blown game. The differences between these are that you can’t undo a move in the main game whereas you can if playing in the training mode and you can only earn medals and other awards such as unlocking later levels if you are playing in the full game.

The water pack level is the easiest of the four separate courses to be played, with each hole only being a Par 2 course.
The later courses will have much more elaborate holes to beat. If you’re not a golf buff and don’t know what Par means, it tells you how many shots you should need to pot the ball. So for the water level every hole can be done quite easily in two hits of the ball. (If you’re good enough you may even score an Eagle (a hole in one) though I don’t think that terminology is quite right here lol. Some people previously had problems using the controls. There were several comments from the previous giveaway that addressed this problem. You can follow these by checking the introduction above, but basically you move the mouse to aim the ball (or to take a 360 degree look around), then when you’re satisfied, click on the left mouse button and draw the mouse back. The putter will move backwards simulating a stroke being made. You can re-aim the ball at any time and/or change the power of the stroke. Once you’re satisfied with your adjustments you can take the shot. To hit the ball, click on the right mouse button. That’s it. You should certainly take some practice rounds first so that you can judge how much pull back on the putter is required to hit the ball a specific distance. When playing a full game you will be shown the score card at the end of each round. This is not shown during a training session.

Useful Info:

• To open new courses you must beat all 18 holes in the first course or beat the computer on any difficulty setting. There are four full courses to try. The first ‘water’ course is a 2 hole course, but later levels become much more interesting.

• To save your game at any time just click on the Esc key to bring up a menu.

• To see the read me file click on F1

• To get this to work in Vista right click on the games icon, scroll down to properties then the compatibility tab. Tick the box to run in compatibility mode and choose XP Service Pack 2

• If your game appears to have disappeared, check the task bar as it may have been minimized to it.

• To hit the ball. Aim, then click the left mouse button; draw back the mouse then click the right mouse button to shoot.

• Apart from using the keyboard to input your name, the game is fully mouse controlled.

• One particular user got crashes at the beginning of the game. He found turning his firefox browser off cured the problem.

• When this was previously given away some community members received an error message asking for an Indeo codec to be installed. Do not follow the link provided as this just takes you to a commercial site that charges around $15 for the codec. It can be downloaded from the following site for free:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Indeo_Codec.htm

Images; all on one page:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mini%20Golf%20Cham pionship/
Image Slideshow:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mini%20Golf%20Championship/?albumview=slideshow

System Requirements:
• Windows 98/98SE/2000/Me/XP
• Processor: PIII 1 GHz
• 128 MB RAM
• Free hard drive space: 200 MB (this is for saves as well)
• 3D Video Card 64MB DirectX 9
• DirectX-compliant Sound Card

Conclusion

This is a very nice mini golf game, with easy to use controls, beautiful graphics and enough variety to keep the whole family entertained for ages. It’s got plenty of replayability value as well, especially if your going to play against other human players. If you don’t like the sounds, they can be exchanged for more suitable ones, but you would need to find these yourself, or re use some other sound files that can be found in the games data/sounds folder. Just copy a sound that you think is okay then rename it to the sound you want to replace. Back up the original just in case there’s a problem.

Notes:

If you miss this game, there are not many free alternatives that I could find. There’s one called Mini Golf Pro that’s a full version commercial game (though being Gametop it’s free) from Game top, though you do get a browser opening once the game is closed down. Other than that the game is quite a good one to have and is certainly a good alternative to today’s game if you miss it. It has several different modes such as 18 hole championship course and a nine hole course. Also this game has an editor so that you can create your own courses and holes. The major difference between this and todays giveaway is the graphics. The graphics are not as good, but that doesn’t mean much when game play is more important.
http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/golf-download/

There’s also loads of online browser versions of mini gold for example by following the link below you’ll find a simple but free online browser game called Fetchfido’s Golf. You may need to install Macromdia Shockwave or one of several others. If you don’t have the required software already installed you may be prompted to down load software such as Macromedia flash player :
http://www.fetchfido.co.uk/games/mini-golf/mini-golf.htm
There’s a whole list of online games you can choose, just by typing in the words free golf games or free mini golf games.

Thank you, Whiterabbit! You’re the best. We got one awhile back that was pretty good, but sounds like this one is even bettter. A-downloading I go.