Hey there,
this is Xiaopang and you're watching my first tool-assisted speedrun When I started recording this run,
my main goal was to show off some good gameplay. The time was only my secondary concern.
In fact, this run could be improved by about 3 minutes. Yet, it looks great and that's what was most important to me in the first place. Since the game runs on its hardest setting, I start off almost at
the bottom of the ranking with stronger rivals and insane wind speeds. To step it up some more,
I also chose the hardest to control player.
Coincidentally, he is also the
most perfect player for speedruns. His power and angle gauges run
much faster than those of the others. Also, he has the strongest drive of all,
which enables him to save a swing on many holes. The hardest part of the run is always to hit the hole from the fairway. This might look pretty easy, but it's hellishly hard,
despite all the advantages of making a tool-assisted run. While the game's crude graphics and its arcade style
imply simple gameplay, the reality is quite the opposite. Thanks to the low native resolution of the game,
it seems easy to hit that comparably huge hole. Hitting it is indeed easy, but making the ball go in, isn't. The hole is just a simple depiction of a complex and very accurate,
but also very picky simulation, that runs in the background.
As a result, hitting the hole
– even with slow speeds while rolling – …is next to impossible, unless you hit a small
array of pixels with a perfect angle and speed. Additionally to that, your options of
hitting the ball seem plenty, yet are very limited. You can only turn to left or right by at least one pixel to refine your swing. This tiny pixel translates to several centimeters
of difference over a several hundred yard drive. This is enough to never hit the hole in any combination of swings. Another obstacle is the randomly changing wind speed,
which can make or break your game. The biggest problems are the obstacles of the level design. Trees blocking shortcuts, bunkers in front
of holes, that block the landing zones of the ball… …or the hole's location on
declines and inclines, just to name a few. This is a nice example of how hard it is to hit the hole. Even though the ball approaches it slowly
and hits it directly, it just hits the flagpole. An eagle is still nice enough though. So, whenever I realized that I
couldn't hit the hole from the fairway, I tried to place the ball at least
as close to the hole as possible.
This was one of the hardest holes in the whole run. It took almost two hours of painful
timing until I finally got a surprising ending! You should watch the second swing in slow-motion. It looks pretty easy and straight forward, but it was hard as hell. The trees blocked the path of the
ball and there was no way around them.
So I used the treetop of one trees to let
the ball bounce from it directly into the hole. The angle was so steep that I couldn't
believe that it even had worked at all. Ever seen an Albatross in this game? Me neither, until I finished this hole 😉 Another one of those holes that look like a hole-in-one would be easy. But the ball always hits the tree in the front,
destroying all approaches to aim accurately for the hole. You can only hope for the last undetermined variable left – the wind. As you could see, the wind just happened to have his union break… When I started this run I wanted to win all contests. Those boost the end stats and that's the thing I'm after 😉 A die hard speedrun approach would have required me to lose the contests.
This would have shaved off a minute off the final time. The stupid tree prevented the ball from hopping onto the green. I couldn't hit the hole with this drive anymore. Oh well, at least an eagle… Now, this surprised me…
especially since this was the only swing combination left. Trees are such a terrible obstacle. In this case, changing my position by only one
pixel resulted in the ball landing all over the green. Slowly closing in on the hole was impossible this way. Another one of those swings that could have been a hole-in-one.
The distance would have been an interesting factor, because it
would have required the most powerful drive to get a hole-in-one. Too bad that those trees blocked the ball. Instead, I was lucky to even reach the green… Even though the ball doesn't even touch the trees,
the engine apparently creates an invisible field around them… …that slows the ball down, if it is just close enough. This hole looks like hitting it with the driver would be easy. And may be it is. But not with the 120 yard driver of that lumber jack. It just didn't allow to set the right amount of strength.
A 100 yard driver certainly would have worked. Too bad you can't pick your prefered clubs. One of the easiest holes of the whole run… I tried to get behind the trees
and as close to the water as possible. The rest was only child's play 😉 Now, this would have been an easy
course, if it hadn't been for the strong wind. I needed it for the first swing to get through the trees. But when it came to aim for the hole,
it was the biggest (and basically only) problem. Yet, I succeeded 🙂 This level was hard as hell. It was designed as a Par 5 course. I wanted to finish it in 2 swings,
which would have been another Albatross towards my stats. I could bridge the distance,
but the trees in combination with the bunkers… …prevented any possibility of
sinking the ball with the second swing.
In fact, this swing was so tightly set,
that every tiny modification made the ball…..either land in the bunker, or far beyond the hole. Oh well, touching the flag pole on a
decline is also quite an achievement :).