Walkabout Mini Golf putts through the backlot with Passport: Hollywood

When I first heard that Mighty Coconut's new Walkabout Mini Golf course was called "Passport: Hollywood", I pictured myself putting my way through scenes of famous Hollywood films. I thought I would be driving my ball through space battles, putting between tanks in war scenes, and dodging bullets in bank heist gun fights. And that's kind of what this new course is all about, and kind of not.

As usual, Mighty Coconut puts an unexpected and delightful spin on players' expectations with Passport: Hollywood. Instead of playing through the movies themselves, players are guiding through the backlot of a 1950's Hollywood backlot, with holes nestled among the props, lights, and cameras during various film shoots. As soon as I loaded into the course and saw the Warner Brothers-style front gates and water tower, I immediately knew that the reality was even better than my expectations.

Passport: Hollywood is arguably the most detailed setting yet released for Walkabout Mini Golf. The player weaves their way through three separate film sets - an Invasion From Mars-style 50s thriller, a bank heist noir film, and a pirate adventure. On each of these sets are the prerequisite filming equipment, but there are also signs of life from the film crew. Tools are left scattered about. A stray sandwich is positioned just off-camera. At one point, the player can divert and explore a prop room off to the side of one hole, just for the fun of it.

It's fun to see the way filming techniques and special effects have been woven into the experience. The two-by-fours used to rock a car back and forth for a chase scene become obstacles on one hole. Players can dip behind rear-projection screens, and closely examine miniatures and models used for filming, even getting a hole that goes through the model-making workshop.

Lots of hiding places in this room.

Folks like me that are addicted to Walkabout's hidden-ball finding minigame better buckle up, as all of this detail means that there are a lot of places to explore in the search. It took me two times through the course to find the ten balls required to open up the Hard version of Passport: Hollywood (and I haven't made par yet - my record is +1, which makes me insane). 

While the difficulty on the easy version of the course is not overly challenging, the Hard mode is absolutely diabolical. As usual, Mighty Coconut alters some holes with simple tweaks that can stymy players, but other holes have been completely redesigned to offer a much greater challenge. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say that the 18th hole has been escalated in a way that had me ripping my remaining gray hair out of my head.

Walkabout Mini Golf remains one of the best values in gaming, and though Mighty Coconut has scaled back slightly in their cadence of delivering new courses, Passport: Hollywood shows that while the company is slightly lowing the quantity of DLC, it is certainly not skimping on the quality. So hop in and have fun - just remember to keep it quiet on the set.