Pretty nifty preorder bonus if you ask me, but what the hell does a body bag have to do with golf?

We Love Golf Preorder Gift [Capcom Unity - No, I'm not actually that stupid]

Out of a field hat contained choices such as Roll Caskett from Mega Man Legends and Captain Commando (my choices), the votes came out in favor of Morrigan from the Dark Stalkers series and Ken from Street Fighter. Morrigan will be portrayed by the lovely Stephanie, while Mark will don a red gi and blond locks, becoming the first African-American Ken Masters.

It may look a bit odd to you, but I used to have a black friend who dressed up as Ken for anime conventions, so these screens just bring back fond memories.

We Love Golf! Exclusive Character and Costume Revealed!

The fans asked for it and so they shall receive

Hi guys,

We Love Golf!'s release is steadily approaching soon and in addition to the Wii-tastic golf action, one of the really fun things about We Love Golf is the alternate Capcom costumes for the characters. When we heard the team was adding two new characters for the upcoming Western release of the game, we asked "why not ask our fans to pick their alternate costumes?"

As it turns out, everybody at Capcom had lots of extremely good reasons why this was a terrible idea. But then we did it anyway!

For the female character, your choices for the alternate costumes were Cammy (Street Fighter), Morrigan (Darkstalkers), Rouge (Power Stone), Roll Caskett (Mega Man Legends), and Ashley Graham (Resident Evil). For the men, the options were Frank West (Dead Rising), Balrog (Street Fighter boxer), Guy (Final Fight), Ken (Street Fighter), Dhalsim (Street Fighter), and Captain Commando (from, um, Captain Commando).

Today we're proud to announce the fans' choices: Darkstalkers' own Morrigan, and Street Fighter's Ken! Morrigan's outfit is available as Stephanie's alternate costume, and you'll find Ken's red gi on Mark, giving us our first African-American incarnation of Ken Masters!

Thanks to everyone who voted for making this a ton of fun and adding some great surprises to the game.

Cheers,

Tim and the Capcom PR team

Instead, the swing mechanic, as we've previously mentioned, is based on timing. You are trying to line up various gauges at the correct time. The part that does feel golf-like is that the angle you hold the Wii-mote corresponds to the on-screen golf club. Thus, you can hold it with an open or closed face. After a fair bit of trial-and-error, I was able to get the timing down. Putting was a totally different matter.

At TGS, whenever we putted, we kept coming up short. The controls felt buggy, and Capcom was quick to point out that the developers were still working out the kinks. Fair enough. The Capcom rep at the Games Festa mentioned that they have tightened up putting and made it easier. Still, it was necessary to take an non-intuitive control scheme to get it to work. From the conversation I had with the Capcom rep at the Games Festa:

ME: "Isn't it really difficult to do putting with the Wii-mote?"
CAPCOM GUY: "Yes, it's been challenging."
ME: "And isn't that because the Wii-mote isn't striking anything? I don't mean striking for like feedback, but when you put a ball, you hit something."
CG: "Right. And when you swing the Wii-mote, you aren't hitting anything."
ME: "Isn't that what makes it hard? It's difficult to register that moment when you hit the golf ball?"
CG: "Yes."
ME: "I've heard that it's difficult to mimic drumming with a Wii-mote for that reason. That it's very difficult to register when a drum is hit because the Wii-mote isn't actually hitting anything."

How have they overcome this? The Capcom Guy offered this advice while putting in We Love Golf: Hold up your arm slowly and wait until your club reaches the Target Marker on the gauge. Leave your arm there, but release the A button. The putter will automatically hit the ball. My success rate using this method was actually pretty high! And all the previous frustration we encountered with We Love Golf putting at TGS was gone. Thing is, the Wii-mote seems to have made things unnecessarily complicated...

The meter indicates power on a weak-to-strong, left-to-right basis (obviously). The circled orange club on the far right is your target strength, which changes depending on the remaining distance to the hole. The Wiimote icon is where the remote is relatively located in real space after you've begun holding down the A button to start your swing.

Here's where I was initially thrown off: As you pull back, the Wiimote icon slides to the right. The "intuitive" thing to do is to immediately swat forward once the Wiimote icon touches the recommended sweet spot, right? But! You see the club icon on the far left? It lags behind your Wiimote's trail by about a second, but that's the icon you're supposed to time everything by, not the Wiimote. Confusing, no? After you've completed the backswing motion (best done semi-slowly to sure up the match), the club icon rushes back to the left—when it lines up with the faded blue shadow is when you're supposed to swing forward, so you have this weird mid-backswing pause. It made putting really annoying since timing the back and forth is hard in the short space you're given.
It makes sense after you've played it for a bit, but it definitely takes practice, and it's really got nothing to do with golf—it's simply a timing mini-game that's vaguely similar to timing Super Strikes in Mario Strikers. I didn't even try to get into the topspin and backspin mess, honestly.
One other control issue is the way you switch views by tilting the remote up or down. It's far too easy to accidentally switch to the larger field view; I noticed I wasn't the only one by far who inadvertently flipped between game screens more than a couple of times.

Despite all of my initial "getting used to it" issues, I could see where it'd be a lot of fun after some more hands on time, at least if you're into Camelot's style of sports games, which I am. At the same time, I feel like the controls could be tweaked a bit to make it easier to start "loving" it immediately while maintaining the depth of the game mechanics.

If you've grown weary of Wii Sports Golf, Super Swing Golf, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 and find that Super Swing Golf Season 2 and King of Clubs aren't meeting your future golf needs, you now have another option. Golf clap-worthy press release follows.

CAPCOM® JOINS FORCES WITH CAMELOT TO DEVELOP WE LOVE GOLF!™ FOR THE WII™

Immersive Golfing Experience and Flexible Tee Times Thanks to the Wii Remote™

SAN MATEO, Calif — Sept. 14, 2007 ¾ Capcom ® , a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced a partnership with Camelot Software Planning to develop We Love Golf!™ for the Wii™ home video game system. Best known for developing Hot Shots Golf and the Mario Golf series, Camelot has a proven track record of creating entertaining, successful sports video games. This latest title transforms the Wii Remote™ into a virtual set of golf clubs, creating the most immersive golfing experience available off the greens. Capcom plans to release We Love Golf! in North America in 2008.

"Camelot's pedigree in this genre, coupled with Capcom's creative expertise, is a virtual hole in one," said Nique Fajors, vice president, marketing, Capcom Entertainment. "Combining an already great game concept with the exciting innovations possible on the Wii is a winning formula for an amazing experience for gaming and golfing fans."

We Love Golf! presents a realistic golfing experience with a fresh new spin, incorporating the Wii Remote's unique motion-sensing functionality. Players will use the controller to choose clubs, line up shots, swing and even add a touch fade or draw with a flick of the wrist. Just as on a real course, gauging wind conditions, correct club selection and careful reading of the greens are all essential for victory. A variety of game modes, multiple characters, and unlockable content will provide endless hours of putting heaven.

Capcom Presser [Game Watch Impress]