Having been a huge fan of Burnout over the years, the thought of having part of the team create a game involving golf left me a little confused, but not for long. Dangerous Golf is very much my cup of tea. The aim of the game is simple, although the execution can become quite challenging. You have one golf ball and a room to destroy as much as possible before getting the opportunity to sink your putt. You’ll travel all around the world and visit various locations, admiring your view before causing chaos.
Unfortunately, some of the locations you’ll end up playing in aren’t the most exciting, a men’s toilet being the worst. Thankfully despite the weird selection of ‘courses’ there is plenty to discover because of the variation within each of the levels. In fact, it will take a long time to discover a lot of the hidden elements of the game. For example, every level has a secret sauce bottle that will give a big boost to your score. There are also signature smashes, these involve hitting certain objects. Later levels link together through secret warp passages, some are easier to find than others, but that’s the point!
Dangerous Golf can initially feel very static, there aren’t any moving targets, but that’s where the smashbreaker comes into play. Each level requires you to smash an initial amount of objects before the smashbreaker unlocks. Once it does you can press B and use the left stick to cause massive of destruction with a slow motion flammable golf ball. It’s clear that every level has had plenty of work put into it, smashing through a case of champagne bottles does as you would expect, with the corks flying around smashing items your score keeps increasing. Once the smashbreaker ends you’ll need to putt the ball or face your score being cut in half. Every object is worth something so try to cause as much damage as you can. If you are feeling really confident try putting by ricocheting the ball off as many walls as possible for extra bonuses.
As you play through the levels you’ll be introduced to new mechanics, you can tee off using Pistol Tee which is a laser sighted, more powerful tee off, or danger time which slows down the smashbreaker even more giving you extra time to admire your handy work. Later levels have hazards that you have to avoid or face the level ending immediately. Some levels include using glue to allow you to stick the ball to any surface or even explode items using bombs. I preferred playing the levels with a timer on them, it made the levels more intense and actually more fun.
Every level seem to have a perfect shot to discover and that’s what makes the game great. At the beginning of the level you are greeted with a flyover of a course, allowing you to use hints. The hints will highlight certain items to aim for which will help generate a better score. You also you get to see a leaderboard showing you who you need to beat. Most games are more fun with Friends and Dangerous Golf is no exception. As well as the Single player tour, there is co-op tour and a four player competitive play, where you’ll pass the controller between people. Online allows you to play with up to eight opponents – it works really well as all players all get to take their shots simultaneously, it would be great to see the other players shots if you finish before everyone else, otherwise you get stuck waiting at a leaderboard screen.
I noticed some real performance issues on a couple of levels which dampened my experience but thankfully it didn’t happen too often, it takes a while to get used to some of the camera angles and work out how the game plays on your own as there isn’t any useful instructions in the game. Dangerous Golf is a game that encourages you to keep trying to attain the highest score possible but unfortunately the 40-50 second wait for the level to reload is quite tiresome, thankfully it seems that they are working on this as a priority so fingers crossed it won’t be too long until it is sorted out.
I like Dangerous Golf, I wasn’t sure at first but as the new mechanics became available I began to enjoy it more and more. Despite appearing to be quite simple it’s actual quite tactical and when you go head-to-head via couch play the fun levels increase. Performance issues aside this is a good game to have in your collection.
Thanks Three Fields Entertainment & Xbox for supporting TiX
