Best Croquet Console Game despite a few Unforgiveable Croquet Sins

Screenshot Photo Gallery

The Summer Sports Paradise Island game is older than the Game Party 3 release I reviewed a few months ago. I had actually played this 2008 compilation by Destineer a few years ago, but just recently purchased a copy for review purposes.

One thing you'll note right away is the nine-wicket layout and a set of giant wickets. However, the kick to the stomach comes when you realize the game has two unforgivable sins. First, you can only play cutthroat, one-ball style croquet. That hurts, but the fact that you can run wickets backward is so wrong that I can't even put it into words. The good news on that is if you have any kind of croquet honor, you can choose to ignore that and run them from the right side. Still, to have something like this out there serves to further confuse the general public on croquet rules. It's the basketball equivalent of not forcing a player to dribble in my opinion.

On the plus side, the play is a little more solid than the Game Party 3 (GP3) version.  Mainly, the Paradise Island (SSPI) version has a court that is surrounded by a wooden border, so there is no out of bounds and the balls play off of the border (like billiards). That's not actually as bad as it sounds as it allows for break play. The bizarre boundary limitations of the GP3 game make breaks a real challenge.

I will say a great improvement for croquet games over the real world is the running scoreboard and to some degree the deadness board. It would be nice to see everyone's deadness, but for one-ball, I pretty much just need to know what's going on for me. GP3 did not show deadness is a challenge, but it always displayed both scores.

On the SSPI, ball placement is a little inconsistent, but you can generally figure a way to work out the croquet shot you want to take.

The computer player AI is not good, but they are generally decent enough (if you put them at the top level of three) to make things interesting if you error out on your breaks. That does tend to happen because controlling your distance on short shots can be challenging.

The game has an option for two non-standard wicket layouts. I'm a purist, so I've never played either one. They look ridiculous and you can see them on one of the screenshots in the photo gallery.

Ultimately, the game is frustratingly close to a good croquet game, but just a bit short. However, if you can get it cheap, you might enjoy trying to construct breaks during the long winter. Basically, the engine is good, and if you introduced partner play and eliminated the ability to run wickets backward, it'd be a decent play.

Of course, the Game Party 3 version does not have computer opponents at all and I suppose both games speak to the difficulty of programming AI for a partner ball computer player. Still, I would suggest that the engine is solid enough that some developer should take a shot at a next-level game.

Summer Island Available on Amazon

Update

on 2010-05-12 11:51 by Dylan

Matt Smith had a great tip for this game. Play as individuals and you have essentially created the partner game. I can't believe I didn't think of this. The only key is you cannot peg out your first ball to the stake.