Top Darts Review

A great old school darts game with a few new twists!

Top darts uses the PlayStation move to help you accurately aim and throw your darts as if you are playing down your local pub. This is done through a series of small tests prior to the beginning of the game.

The game has several menus for you to choose from;

Tutorials
This mode is brilliant in terms of it helping you learn how to play the game and get used to the motion controller itself. This mode teaches you how to play through a series of 6 tutorials. You will learn how to aim, lock on to the board, throw the dart and learn about the different game types and stats. This mode is a good intro, doesn’t kill time and tells you exactly what you need to know in order to get the most out of your games.

Stack-ups
This single player challenge tests your aim, speed and knowledge of the board to the absolute limit. Here you must prevent your stack of target numbers reaching ten high, however there are power ups you can use to your advantage such as being able to freeze the stack for a limited amount of time.

Cat and mouse game.

Cup
Compete for the title of Top dog! This is a sort of tournament mode where you progress up the ladder by beating your opponents. You can choose the skill level, no. of contestants, the venue and if you wish to play with another person.
In the tournament matches the “classic darts game” is played where each player starts with a target score of 301. The 1st player to reduce their score to zero and win two rounds, wins the match.This mode can be good on its own but it reaches its max potential when played with others, the feeling of competition between players makes this mode a must play if you’re not on your own.

League
Here you go head to head with nine other players in each of the four darts league. At the end of the season players in 1st and 2nd place are promoted and those in 9th and 10th are relegated.
The four different leagues you compete in are Amateur, Semi-pro, Pro and World Class. The 1st three leagues share an initial target score of 501, whereas the target score in the World Class league begins at 701.
League mode provides a good challenge in the sense of having the player aim for something but also ensures the game has a good replay ability factor to it as well. This is important as you would want the player to keep coming back again and again.

Games
This mode is probably the one where you will be spending most of your time because here you can set up your own games to play. You can choose to play at a different venue, increase the amount of human players and even choose to have a custom image on the dart board.
There is good variety of games to choose from, some realistic, some not but just as entertaining.

The games are;
Classic Score based game – This is similar to the scoring system in Cup and League mode where the player starts with a target score and has to reduce it to zero, finishing with either a double or a bullseye. I played this version a lot through the other modes so it’s not one I would come back to very often
Around the clock – This one is great in terms of practicing to hit every segment on the board. You make your way around the board (like a clock) and hit every segment in numerical order.

Just one of the awesomely designed boards, available in the game.

Cricket – Apparently this is the most played darts game in the US. Players compete to close down ten numbers and score as many points as they can from them before their opponent closes them too.

Tic Tac Toe – This is basically the darts equivalent of Noughts and Crosses.

Cat and Mouse – Each player takes a turn to compete as the Cat and Mouse. Players must hit the segment of the board their character is on, order to progress. The Mouse’s goal here is to collect the cheese and the
Cat’s goal is to catch the mouse. This was most likely the most entertaining mode as it required good concentration at a fast pace.

Fuse Wire – The fuse is lit and the countdown is on! Players need to outdo each other by hitting the available target numbers shown on screen. You hit the numbers streaming across the screen to burn your opponent’s fuse wire until they explode. This is like the cat and mouse mode where it involves fast pace and good eyesight; however I feel that this mode has a higher replay ability percentage due to its light nature.

Warfare – In Warfare, players are allocated ten numbers. These numbers represent each player’s soldiers. Players compete to eliminate each other’s soldiers in as few darts as possible.

Top darts does really well to replicate the real world darts game and translate it using the PlayStation move. While in my opinion, Darts does not hold much a variety in its sport, the game makes up for this in it’s over the top but enjoyable games.

Final score – 73%