Just how far can you go with an online game? By some measures, World Golf Tour could be considered a Time Waster that is all grown up. It's trying to be a desktop-quality game provided online.

The game play is pretty much par for the course, as far as golf games go (sorry, I couldn't resist), and the course imagery is gorgeous, maybe a little too much so. As is typical in golf, there are only a few things that move: in this case the player, the ball, and the flag. Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that these are rendered in 3D on top of a static image of the course, making them look out of place.

Worse, to achieve the beautiful effect of having photographic imagery for the game, you are confined to a set number of vantage points, many of which are fine when the ball lies in the center of them, but become very awkward when the ball is not. The terrain very obviously has undulations in it, and the ball seems to react fairly reasonably to the terrain, but you can tell that the ball's movement is somehow disconnected from the scene.

Although all of this seems like criticism, the truth is that these are compromises that are reasonable for such a beautiful free online game, if it wasn't for one fatal flaw: Flash. Unfortunately, on my reasonable speedy machine, Flash seemed to act up on every third shot, and would cause my shot meter to jump around sporadically, making it impossible to make a decent shot, never mind a good one. Now, I'm not very good at this as it is, but in one 9-hole round I had at least 8 shots completely ruined by a freezing display.

Now to be fair, World Golf Tour is still in beta, and hopefully they can iron out this very ugly divot in what is otherwise a fairly decent fairway.

You can play a skills game for free without signing up for an account, but to play a full round or to play with your friends, you'll need to sign up for an account and give away your email address and birthday. Is it worth it? I guess it depends on how much you like golf.

When my code strikes back, and my head is swimming in meaningless garbled input, I feel this insatiable urge to putt. Mini Golf Pro is my new vice, my new addictive habit that thaws my mind from the chilling code. Mini Golf Pro (a free download) is actually very fun, especially if you like putt-putt. With 27 holes and several other smaller games all in one 7MB package, the fun lasts for hours. This game features multiplayer capabilities either locally or online, a hole-builder for customized putting, and all kinds of wacky gadgets and enhancements to make your small-green golf debut sizzle! Some of my favorite challenges are outside of the championship course of 27 holes, like the Gravity Tower, in which your golf ball must fight gravity to get to the top of the tower. This par 20 hole makes even the toughest "stand-out-in-the-rain-in-the -27-degree-weather" golf psychopath cry like a sissy. Maybe I am a bit over-happy about this game, but it is one of the few that is free, works well, and plays very nicely in the golf or mini-golf category. The graphics are good, and it is worth downloading and playing over and over again. Game on! Only available for Windows (as far as I can tell).