Love soccer? Love Golf? Then you’ll love Footy Golf.
Price: Free
Version: 1.00.1
Size: 4.9 MB
Developer: Donut Games
Platform: iPhone & iPad
Apple certainly appears to love promoting freemium games recently. Footy Golf is on first look, just another, but on second glance, it’s actually a lot of fun. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy either of the sports this freemium game takes influence from, then you’ll probably still find some fun in the game, because at its heart, it’s your straight-forward, pick-up-and-play slice of fun.
Really, the game takes more influence from something like Angry Birds, with the pull back and aim mechanism. The goal is to shoot the ball into the… well, goal. Exactly where the golf element comes in we’re not entirely sure – there’s no wind-factor to take into account, and it’s mostly just a character trying to direct a ball somewhere else across a platform level.
As you continue to play, the levels do get bigger, and it starts to feel a little more like a platform game – especially when typical platform tropes like dangerous spikes come into play. There’s 80 levels in total, and for a freemium game, we’d say that’s a pretty good deal.
Supported by ads, which arise in video form every six levels or so, the main bulk of the game is largely interrupted. However, running a 30 second ad when you’re just a couple of minutes in (such is the ease of the first few levels) is a little unwelcome.
We’d like the option to pay to turn these off, but there doesn’t seem to be one. It also gets a bit annoying when you realize that sometimes simply completing a level isn’t enough to unlock the next – you need enough coins. From here, you either have to go back and seek coins you missed in previous levels, or watch an ad (or buy coins via IAP.) If you’ve been encouraged to spend coins unlocking a player or ball, you may not have seen it coming and it’s a bit frustrating being forced into watching an ad.
Elsewhere, the game tries to keep you interested by letting you unlock new characters (using coins, which you can collect by shooting the balls at them during each level,) and you can also unlock new balls with different characteristics. You can earn extra coins by watching more video ads, naturally.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun – but it’s far from original. There’s not a huge amount of long-term play in it, as all the coins can be collected by taking your time to fire multiple times to reach them, while the star-reward out of three that you receive for completing the level in minimal shots can be achieved by replaying the level without the burden of reaching the coins.
We’d recommend it based on it being a free slice of fun, but don’t expect it become a Home screen staple.