Amazingly enough, the gameplay beats its predecessor as well. A different company, Clap Hanz, made this one (instead of our old friends at Camelot), but you really won't be able to tell the difference. Sure, the characters aren't super-deformed anime style any more, but otherwise the game is just as good. The experience system has been replaced with points, which basically work the same way. There are many play modes to choose from -- Stroke, where you hook up the multi-tap and play with up to three of your friends for the highest score on any opened course, Match Play, where you play one-on-one for the best score on each hole, Tournament mode, which lets you collect points and open up new courses, clubs, balls, and goodies, Vs. mode, where you play against characters you don't have yet -- a win means you get them, 9-Hole Par 3, a sort of 'quickie' game, and Training, which lets you play any hole you have access to, to try to figure it out the best. As you beat Tournaments, new courses, clubs, and balls open up for you to use. This is a very cool feature.
Now, as many of you may realize, I'm mainly an RPG guy. Why am I reviewing Hot Shots Golf 2? Because it's an amazingly fun game. I picked the first one up for rave reviews, and I just had to have this one as well. And let me tell you, it is worth the price of admission. The golf physics are amazingly solid, the character design is great, the multi-player is a blast, and most importantly, the game itself is amazingly fun, even for non-golfers. The computer basically 'guides' you as to where you should shoot and which club you should use, but you can feel free to adjust how you like, fly around the course to see just what's coming up, and more. After a little while, the game's mechanisms become second nature, and you're having hours of fun before you know it.