Zany Golf

This is a cracked version of the original DOS game, which in and of itself is generally fine and is standard practice, even among GOG's "own" DOS releases. However, this particular version uses a crack from a known abandonware release that also features a trainer (cheat) by default that cannot be disabled, so there is absolutely no way to lose the game as the "strokes left" counter does not count down. I genuinely miss the days of GOG's quality control. Piko Interactive's DOSBox releases often have inexcusable quality control oversights, even if quality control is in play.

For starters, as a previous review stated, this port is (or was, I didn't play this version long enough to find out if this is still the case) basically stuck in a cheat mode that takes away the challenge. What I'd like to add is that presentation wise, this is the weakest version and is completely outshined by any of the other ports. My recommendation is to only buy this when it's on sale so you can legally download one of the better ports. I suggest the Amiga version because it has a very easy to use emulator and has the fluid mouse control for the cursor. To review the game proper, it's an alright golf simulator with some cute locales and gimmicks but there were points that I had a spot of trouble lining up shots and the game is very short at only a couple of holes, which is all the more reason to wait for a sale. Only huge mini golf fans who aren't afraid to dabble in some technical mumbo jumbo to get the proper experience need apply, in other words.

I'm just writing this review to clarify that - contrary to what the previous reviews state - the game does have limited strokes. And you can loose the game if your run out of strokes before the ball reaches the hole. I don't know if the issue persisted for a long time, since I only acquired the game recently. But if those problems existed, then they were fixed. As for the rest, Zany Golf is a game that I played A LOT back in 1990. It's a cool little game to spend some time moving the ball through the whacky scenarios. If you don't have problems playing a 16-color EGA game (it's a palette which I kinds like). If you have young kids and you want some fun, simple, safe game which you can play with them and which requires very few skills (game control is mouse only) then I'd say this is a good option.