Your first experience with Outlaw Golf 2 will likely be the intro, unless you're the type that jams start unendingly until you reach the main menu. Like me, your first thought could possibly entail something along the lines of "Sigh, Hypnotix spent more time making this drawn-out, excessively suggestive intro than they did the actual game." Uh oh - not good! Fortunately, this turns out to be not entirely true, as there is a solid engine to be found in Outlaw Golf 2. Unfortunately, this solid engine is hidden beneath a barrage of unending and irritating audio and extravagant scenes between, before, and after shots, among other things.

Outlaw Golf 2 puts off an obnoxious aura straight from the introductory cut scene and continues through character selection and actual play. One thing you'll notice right off the bat when playing this title: the announcer never stops talking. Dave Attel may be voicing various roles, but I assure you, they are the anti-funny. Especially on the fifteenth hearing. After trudging through Bad Boys: Miami Takedown and being forced to listen to Martin Lawrence and Will Smith knockoffs comment on every little detail for hours straight, it's not a lot of fun to fire up your golf sim and get the same treatment from the announcer. Oh, and I mean every little thing. Every shot requires a comment of sorts - occasionally before and after as well. It doesn't end.

It won't be long before you decide that it's a great idea to play this one mute, what with the wretched announcer, obnoxious characters, and unentertaining soundtrack. Fortunately, Outlaw Golf 2 conveniently supports custom soundtracks, making use of the Xbox hard drive. Thank the heavens for that. In addition to eliminating the poor default soundtrack it allows you to golf at your leisure while listening to the Final Fantasy VI boss theme for extra tension!

Before you're thrown in to the game, you must choose a mode. There are a large amount of variants on the game play (such as stroke, match, baseball, poker, etc), but none of them really take the game any further than a standard match of stroke-play would, thus rendering them fairly ineffective at keeping interest levels high.

At this point, you get to choose your character. Hurrah - there is a decent sized selection of characters (and tied caddies) to choose from, each generally involving a revealing female in either the lead, support, or both. This leaves plenty of room for raunchy jokes based around feminine existence almost no matter who you choose! Yippie! While it's rated mature, it's pretty obvious the crowd being targeted is the early teens here.

The game further shows off its class by allowing you to cycle through various revealing costumes. To its credit, you can also choose clubs and such, but the various trashy outfits don't do much for this game's presentation, that is, unless you're looking for something like that.

There are 8 courses in Outlaw Golf 2 to play through - a few of them can seem like generic run-of-the-mill courses, until you notice a couple glaring flaws that they contain. This is mostly from a design perspective that very clearly effects game play. For example, a couple of the levels contain various overpasses placed conveniently in the middle of the course. This means you get to overshoot or undershoot - watch out, because when you hit it you're nice and screwed. There are other areas like this, such as platoes that are even more irritating - there are times in which (if you're unlucky) you must actually shoot backwards to make it up the slope from a further angle.

Though the game may have its frustrating moments, the amount of assistance the computer gives the player is ridiculous. For example, one "ghost shot" is allowed per hole. What this does is show you exactly how far and where the ball would land (and subsequently bounce) if you got a perfect shot. This is a HUGE help (and very cheap) help with chipping. In addition to this, however, once you land on the green you have the ability to do three ghost shots which show you the direct path of the ball with the current power and angle, allowing you to adjust until you have a perfect shot. With this addition, puts are far, far too simplistic and easy. The cool, calculated style of Hot Shots is greatly preferred and much deeper.

Occasionally the player might desire to make their way online to Xbox Live in order to find friendly competition. While the Live servers aren't exactly bustling like Times Square, there is some decent traffic here and there, generally someone to play with. Xbox Live play can best be described as single player with someone voice chatting on the other end. While you CAN view their plays, that becomes overly elongated and tedious and it's likely that the choice will be made to simply take the turns at the same time. Live play's a nice addition, but it doesn't up the value too much, especially since it's fairly clear that these servers will be dead down the road.

For 20 dollars, Outlaw Golf 2 isn't really a bad purchase if you're looking for a decent golf sim. Various modes, characters, and courses with added live play - you can't really go wrong, unless you want a high quality sim. If that's the case, Hot Shots or Links would be recommended in its place. A decent game here, but nothing to save it from mediocrity.