Vista Golf Rivals review - A casual golf game we wouldn't put money on

Barely a year on from Vista Golf comes Vista Golf Rivals. You have to say, it looks remarkably similar.

It's not just a visual thing either. The underlying nuts and bolts of this casual putter are more or less identical to its predecessor.

But Vista Golf Rivals defines itself through opposition - the 'Rivals' bit of the title. Whereas Vista Golf pitched you against the computer and the course design, here it's you against your fellow mobile gamers.

This distinction doesn't work out quite as well as you might expect.

So, this is Vista Golf with an online match-making facility, then? Pretty much.

But it goes a little further than that, into areas that might make some feel a little uncomfortable. You see, Vista Golf Rivals also works in a betting element.

You can play the game using its virtual currency and leave it at that. But it clearly wants you to enter a 'Pro' match for real money, with an entrance fee of 60c (the game hadn't been released in the UK almost a week after its release, for some reason).

Your view of this may vary. Personally, I find the whole thing - with the positioning of free play rounds as 'Practice' games and paid ones as 'Pro' games - slightly icky. But each to their own.

Whatever your view on betting and it's entry into casual gaming, however, the insertion of such a system into Vista Golf ends up feeling rather incongruous.

For all the talk of a Pro tier and playing for stakes, the game at its core doesn't feel remotely pro. It's the same casual putter with slightly suspect ball physics and an irritating isometric camera angle.

Indeed, the introduction of higher stakes makes one reappraise those aforementioned underlying nuts and bolts in a rather unflattering light.

When a part of the course obstructs your view, or your ball pauses part of the way up a sheer ramp, or a seemingly moderately paced hit springs out of the hole, then the whole prospect of putting real money on such a shaky experience looks a good deal less appealing.

Vista Golf was fine as a casual time waster. But now that the ante has been upped, it doesn't seem like such a safe bet.