A little less than a couple of weeks ago, I won a contest from the ole Major Nelson on his Twitter Feed. #FreeCodeFriday. Normally, it’s one or two codes and something that you probably don’t want to play. Well, it was actually six codes for the Xbox One and all games that are perfect for reviews by yours truly and for this site. The first one for the mix is Dangerous Golf, a game made by some of the same group that were behind the popular Burnout games. Like crashing cars? Then you will love crashing balls. *blink*, Bad jokes ahead.
Information
Game Rating: E for Everyone
Size: 5.7 GB
Release date: 06/03/2016
Developer: Three Fields Entertainment
Publisher: Three Fields Entertainment
Ever wanted to play with balls in the kitchen, bathroom, meat locker, or in the foyer (okay the last one really sounded horrible)? Ever want to forget all the rules of traditional golf and focus on destroying things and getting it in the hole (*sigh*)? Why is it every sentence I write end up in an innuendo? Okay, this is a golf game where you destroy any item that you can think of in an attempt to get the highest score possible. But whether its a timed hole or your smashbreaker only has so much power left, you’ll have to decide when to pull out to maximize your enjoyment. (Move to the graphics, please)
Graphics
At first glance, this game is really gorgeous. The visuals are sharp and there is a staggering amount of detail in each stage. It really gets you excited for the destruction that is about to take place. Then you hit a ball, destroy enough objects, enable your smashbreaker and the ball gets stuck in a part of the screen with no discernible way to get out. So you panic, mash a few buttons and eventually the screen pans back out before the ball stops in the microwave or the sink with no reasonable way to putt. Okay, the last part doesn’t happen every time. But the screen tearing does happen way too often. It’s a pretty game, it is the details that dampen the experience.
Sound
With a title like Dangerous Golf and knowing that this has Burnout pedigree, I am going to expect some fantastic explosions. Well, you get that, for the most part. Things explode, blow up, crash and break but it does not feel like the hard hitting devastation I would expect. It’s got a good vibe and in certain stages it’s frantic chaos (like it should be). But I wanted more punch.
The music has an interesting punk rock vibe to it. Punk Rock isn’t probably the first thing I would associate with golf, but then this is a different golf game and it suits it perfectly. Unfortunately, the tunes will fade into the background and the player will probably only focus on the wanton destruction of the golf ball after about 10 minutes.
Gameplay
Alright, so the basic set up is to give you a course. Except the course could be a dining room, or a kitchen, or a gas station (and plenty of other variations on the theme). A golf ball is thrown down in front of you, and you are asked to tee off. Aim your shot with right stick, and then flick your left stick up to shoot. Blam, there it goes…hopefully through enough objects (quantity changes from level to level) to enable your Smashbreaker (Burnout fans should know this one). Then its a matter of controlling your Smashbreaker and destroying more objects as you get closer to the flag. Finally, you putt it in and finish the hole. Cash is given, and medals are earned (hopefully).
The holes are spread across four regions and for each ten holes (roughly) you finish a tour, ten tours in all. Each stage requires you to hit key objects and if you hit all of a certain type, then a smashdown occurs for even more points. In addition, other bonuses can occur like a Signature Smash, Secret Sauce or even the elusive Smash Headline. Also, other features are enabled as you keep advancing. Pistol Putt and Pistol Tee give you a laser sight that you can more accurately aim at your destructible objects. Bucket blast lets you shoot balls from a bucket. Warp Zones and Hazards also allow for a thinking approach where you have to plan your shots and not hope for only a lucky bounce.
It is a ton of fun at first, but all of this comes however with a lot of issues. Sometimes a centimeter or inch will be the difference between a Gold Medal round and a round that barely scores a thousand dollars. Also the bounces are horribly unpredictable. I can’t tell you how many times my bounce hits the wall besides a destructible object and not the object itself no matter how many times I reposition the ball and try to get it in the right direction.
Also, once you get beyond the first couple of tours, there will be holes where you have no idea of how to get to the flag (and destroy enough items on the way). There will be times when you figure it out, and there will be times where you fall into dumb luck. Still others where you have to visit Youtube and hope that somebody figured it out already. But this is still not the worst issue with the game (because I could live with all of these and completely enjoy myself).
Loading times. Every hole has to load separately and this can take anywhere from 15 seconds to well over a minute. Now the reason for all of this according to what I’ve read is that game is built on a rather complicated physics engine and that each object has to be loaded independently. Of course, nowhere in that statement have they said that this has been optimized or done in a such a way that will promote speed and efficiency. So it becomes this slow torture of waiting for the next hole to load. This makes every shot count and thus you are create a situation where you are more interested in the next hole rather than exploring around or even going for a Gold where you might have already gotten a Silver.
What’s perhaps more confusing is that if you are playing Co-Op, a reload player 1 to player 2 is fairly quick. Now, sure they are only replacing key items, but it seems like some of that could bleed over to the single player when I want to try the hole again rather than waiting the same amount of time as if I encountered the hole for the first time. I keep my fingers crossed that this is patched because otherwise the experience is fairly enjoyable.
The game can be pretty difficult in spots too. The first two tours do provide the basics of what you are supposed to do with future holes. But then we get hazards and while they start off innocently (with a big giant cake in the middle), they quickly escalate to something far more devious. We also get multiple rooms and trap doors which sounds exciting until you actually play them and want to start rage quitting (before you realize that your one year old son is watching, gosh darn it I love that kid’s laugh when I miss a putt).
Replay
There are quite a few modes to play. You have your basic Single Player Tour mode where you play through ten tours in four different regions. Then you have your Co-Op Tour mode which let’s you play with a buddy. Incidentally, you can also play this with one controller which is useful in a cheat fashion if you progress it at the same time as your Single Player mode. (Remember what I said about screen loads between Player 1 and Player 2 in co-op gameplay?).
Then there is Party Golf which can be online or offline where you select various holes (that you have unlocked) into a master play list. This is followed by Online Clubhouse where you can find an online play session to participate in against another player (no online co-op unfortunately). Clubhouse is the last entry and this gives us a checklist of your Signature Smashes (useful to show how many you have left), Smash Headlines and other odds and ends (treat this as Settings). Credits is unfortunately greyed out until you beat the game.
In addition, it will take time to earn many of the Signature Smashes and Headlines not to mention getting your scores from Bronze to Silver to Gold to Platinum on both the single and co-op tours. We are talking easily a hundred hours for anything but the most skilled players if you can live with the loading screens.
Achievements are plentiful here with 55 of them for the usual 1000 points. A lot of them are basic type achievements where you might hit a single (or double) Smashdown for the first time. Things like hitting a putt off the 4th wall (a neat trick where hit the ball with down on the left stick and it actually knocks against the camera (breaking the 4th wall) before going into the hole) or first Re-Tee (another interesting trick where you actually hole it in your first shot) will require a little more thought but still not hold all that much challenge for seasoned players.
Then there are the mathematical type achievements where you need Break 70 mirrors, Hit 500 objects with a bucket or Hitting the secret sauce in ten different locations. Getting past all of the ten tours will also grant you ten separate achievements. The hardest achievements involving gaining all of the gold medals, gaining all of the signature smashes, and then the dreaded Platinum medals achievement (or “Showing Off Now”) which people who complete have obscenely too much time for. It’s a fair list, but most people will hit the 20-30 range before moving on to something else.
Final Thoughts
After reading this review, one must think there are a lot of negatives to this game. After all, the loading screens and screen tearing are pretty hard to stomach. However, if you can get past that, the game has a lot of positive points. The game is enjoyable to play and as long as you don’t get bogged down its perfect for about 3-5 holes at a time. It has a ton of replay value as well and will be one of those games you will come back to time and time again when you have a few minutes to kill (and don’t want to start something new). Maybe you will hit the shot right this time into the bucket or open up another doorway or finally nail that Gold Medal winning shot.
Overall, I would recommend Dangerous Golf to anybody who likes a little (okay, a lot) destruction in their golfing title. I am hopeful that eventually this game will get some optimization in the future but since its an indie title there is no guarantee to that. We will keep our fingers crossed and I’d say snatch this up once it hits the 50% off level and has a patch or two. Now excuse me while I try the aptly named “Nothing to Go On” once again. Enjoy your smashbreakers friends.
Disclaimer: The reviewer won a code from #FreeCodeFriday from Major Nelson’s Twitter account. He played it for nearly eleven hours which included destroying statues, bookcases, kitchen items, burgers, microwaves, and more toilets than I care to remember. Also, he spent a lot of time waiting, and waiting for the holes to load so he could destroy even more objects only to screw up the first shot and then attempting some ridiculous trick putt to salvage a score. He also managed to gain 25 of 55 achievements.
| Graphics: |  (7.5 / 10) |
| Sound: |  (8.0 / 10) |
| Gameplay: | (7.5 / 10) |
| Replay: |  (9.0 / 10) |
| Overall: | (8.0 / 10) |
