Pangya United: Golf with Style
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
I never considered golf a hobby that I would ever do in my life. I am more into other sports such as soccer and tennis but once I heard there was a game out for it, a MMORPG even, I couldn’t hesitate to try it out. Pangya is one of the few games that try to make golf a lot more fun than it really is. Not only is it anime themed, there is also a lot more features and content to make the game feel advanced. I decided to get some clubs and swing my first ball into its hole.
When creating my first character I didn’t have many options to make my character look much different than others. First of all there is only one character to choose from and besides that I could only choose a different hair color and shirt color. I hope this does not mean the game is heavily focused on cash shop items to change your appearance. I chose for black hair and a black shirt but unfortunately when playing the tutorial my hair was brown and my shirt was white, hopefully this is a bug because that will make your appearance very limited.
The courses all look very special and everything in the user interface is very clean and basic and shows perfectly the ideal power you need to get the ball to the cup. If you manage to lock in the perfect shot the game announces a ‘Pangya’ as your ball skyrockets across the course as far as possible. During my first match I completely missed the ball on my first swing. Yup.. I was off to a good start! My matched opponent on the other hand opened with a beautiful shot and I knew I was in for a long crawl to keep up with this guy. My opponent was playing a perfect game and was hitting everything like Tiger Woods. Although he was labeled as a beginner like me, I wondered if maybe it was a smurf account. On my second course I didn’t manage to do anything better and got another shot behind so I was in total of two shots behind. In tennis the odds would really be stacked against me but golf is a long game and I had plenty of time to make up for a poor start. So I tried my best and managed to gain back one shot in the third course. Unfortunately he hit a hole in one on the fourth course and ended all hope of my comeback. This is definitely a competitive game so don’t play if you hate losing.
I decided to look around and see what else Pangya had to offer the player. First on the tour was my room. Every player in Pangya has their own room that you can decorate with various furniture akin to the Sims game. I had a mailbox and romantic wardrobe waiting for me in my inventory so I quickly pulled them out and put them in my yet empty room. Unfortunately the furniture had the same color as my carpet and background so everything looked really boring and I decided to check out what wallpaper was available. The currency in Pangya is called Pang and you are able to buy a lot more with it than you’d expect from a golf game. Since I wanted to freshen up my room I picked out blue wallpaper and some carpet to make it look even better. Now that my room was looking much better I decided to get some more clothes for my wardrobe since the standard clothes weren’t up to par. If you like the game a lot and want to get more out of it you could support the developers of the game by purchasing ‘points’. Points are the real money currency in Pangya, and you can buy a lot more items and equipment with Points, including a few pieces not available for purchase with Pang. Luckily the real money currency is not game breaking at all and it doesn’t hurt the economy either.
Graphics
To play this anime styled Golf game you will need the following computer requirements to run this game smoothly:
CPU: Pentium 4 or higher
Memory: 512MB or Higher
Video card: Geforce FX or Higher
OS: Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7
Direct X Version: Direct X 9.0c or Higher
If you have no idea whatsoever what these computer specifications I wouldn’t worry too much. Computers from the last 6 or 7 years can handle this game without any trouble.
Conclusion
Pangya is a really fun game and fills an underdeveloped niche in the online gaming world. Golf is considered a game for people that have a boatload of money and almost seems foreign here in the middle of Europe. I have never played golf but since I have played Pangya I would loved to smash a ball with full force in real life once I’m given the opportunity. The game is anime styled to make it more familiar to gamers, and I think the developers did a great job with the UI in making the game accessible to everyone. If you have never played golf before or you just want to watch a ball rocket through the sky, then Pangya is definitely a game to try out.
