Dangerous Golf Review: Not Up To Par

When the ex-Burnout developers come together and announce a new game, the video game industry is sure to notice. Three Fields Entertainment announced Dangerous Golf earlier this year as an “irreverent, silly, fun approach to golf games” that tasks players with wrecking as much havoc across a variety of locations, which includes kitchens, parlors, and gas stations. All of these locations have one thing in common: someone has gone through the trouble of precariously placing a lot of sensitive material across all of these locations. And it’s up to us to completely ruin their every attempt to be organized.

So what happens when you hit a golf ball into a fully-stocked kitchen or very-well organized parlor? Mayhem. But what happens when you hit a golf ball into a fully-stocked kitchen or very-well organized parlor for several hours at a time? Boredom.

Fire In The Hole

Dangerous Golf features over 100 holes for players to tee off on, although the tees aren’t out on a golf course with wide open spaces. Instead, players will globetrot to various locations, although there’s no real indication you’re in another country considering that majority of levels take place indoors. Putting around in a kitchen in the US or in a parlor in France made no difference to me as I focused more on the objective at hand to get the highest score possible.

At the end of each level, my destruction is tallied and I’m then given a medal only if I reached a certain point limit. Point requirements for each level vary, although there are plenty of opportunities to increase my score substantially if I’m able to complete some objectives. For example: I can earn bonus points if I’m able to obliterate a row of hamburgers that are ready to be served to hungry diners or go vase bowling.

While objectives and locations offer a bit of variety in Dangerous Golf, I found the gameplay is repetitive and dull. The game introduces a number of new mechanics every so often, such as allowing your ball to glue itself to the first surface it hits or mimic what it’d be like to shoot it with a pistol, but at its core, I’m still trying to destroy a room filled with fragile material while also attempting to get my ball in the hole. While I have fond memories of blowing stuff up in the Burnout series, completely destroying a room is nowhere near as exhilarating.

Bogey

During my time with Dangerous Golf, I noticed a number of technical issues and slowdowns when I would hit the ball into a large number of objects. Considering I’m able to run Doom in 4K without any sort of graphical or speed issues, it’s safe to say Three Fields Entertainment need to do a bit more optimizations in order for the game to run smoothly on PC. I didn’t get to play the game on either Xbox One or PlayStation 4, so play at your own risk on those platforms.

The camera is also a mess as there were many issues when the ball would be up against a wall, which caused the camera to zoom in extremely close to the ball. I also had instances where the camera was stuck inside the wall and the only way I could get out was by hitting the ball.

There were times where I thought my ball could squeeze past the leg of a table to make a putt, but the hitbox (or whatever you’d call it) of the ball seemed to be larger than the actual ball. I could swear that I could just make it several times past an obstacle to make the putt, but I never made a shot this way. This leads me to believe I’m either a terrible virtual golfer or there’s something up with this ball.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Just like in real-world golf, the game is only good if you have the right kind of people partaking in the experience. Dangerous Golf is no different as it features a co-op campaign, a local party mode, and online multiplayer. These additional game modes make the dreadful repetition of the single-player experience a bit more palatable as you and your partner can work together to rack up points, or you can earn the right to trash talk if you beat your opponents with a higher score.

While the base gameplay experience may not be exhilarating, the game is at least easy to understand where anyone can pick up a controller and play. This will help players feel confident in handing controllers over to their guests to partake in Dangerous Golf’s party mode.

Double Bogey

A golf game developed by some of the people who brought us Burnout seemed like a great idea on paper, but it was poorly executed as globetrotting means nothing in this game, it isn’t very well optimized on PC, and its repetitive gameplay can get old real fast. The only saving grace Dangerous Golf has is its multiplayer modes, especially it’s party mode. Although I’m sure you can find something else to play with friends that has both a good single- and multi-player experience.