[rock music] [typing]
Ugh, I miss Criterion's Burnout games so, so much.
And not nostalgically. I went back to play it for this video for like two minutes
and ended up playing it for two hours. It's still a lot of fun.
And I especially miss the crash mode,
where you're given a car, some traffic and a simple objective:
cause as much destruction as possible by crashing into things,
with your success being measured by the monetary value of damage done.
It was pure arcade goodness and it's high time the concept was revisited.
Enter Dangerous Golf,
a game released in June of 2016,
developed by Three Fields Entertainment.
And seeing as the majority of the company is comprised of ex-Criterion developers,
it makes sense that Dangerous Golf would follow in its footsteps somewhat.
Rather shamelessly, in fact,
as Dangerous Golf is practically a reincarnation of Burnout's Crash Mode,
except with explosive golf balls in place of explosive cars.
You've even got the same kind of World Tour progression system,
where you're given a selection of geographical locations,
each containing a multitude of maps,
and you compete for medals to unlock more.
And sadly, unlike Burnout, which had all sorts of other things in addition to Crash Mode,
here, there's not much more to it than just that.
Let me just go ahead and say it. I wanted to like Dangerous Golf, like, a lot!
I mean, dude, what an amazing premise.
Ex-Burnout devs making another game based on wanton destruction,
turning the entire goal of golf on its head
and using the latest Unreal engine, taking advantage of the latest physics tech.
Ah, man, what's not to love?
Well, once the novelty wears off, quite a bit it seems.
I didn't have much fun with it beyond the first half hour and
for a game that costs $20, that's a problem.
Graphically, it looks wonderful. The concept is delightfully straightforward
and smashing stuff up is always fun.
But it suffers from a couple big problems.
Knowing exactly what to do,
and providing the incentive to keep playing once you figure that out.
Right off the bat, I was confused as to exactly what I was supposed to be doing,
even when flipping through the tips on the How To Play menu.
I thought this was gonna be about smashing things up, first and foremost,
using a golf ball and realistic physics to break as much crap as you could.
But then it started tossing multicolored flags, unwieldy hazards,
unexplained power-ups and bizarre movement my way,
resulting in a bit too much trial and error for me.
For starters, you're not selecting clubs or hitting the ball at any speed other than REALLY hard,
or really soft.
So it's just a one-button affair after you've lined up your shot.
Hit the button, things happen, and it's over before you know it.
If you break enough objects on your initial swing,
then you're granted a Crashbreaker– er, Smashbreaker.
which turns your ball into an explosive sphere of chaos.
You then have the ability to sluggishly control the ball and what it crashes into.
After the Smashbreaker timer runs out, you'll have to putt the ball into the hole.
If you miss a hole, too bad. That's it.
You just lose a ton of money and the round is over.
And if you hit it in, great! Do it again!
And again!
And again...
and surprisingly, little changes between each map.
Once you've seen each of the main areas,
which happens pretty quickly,
I found very little to convince me to keep going,
especially once I figured out that there's barely any reason to experiment within each map.
Unlike Burnout's Crash Mode, where it's just, like, one direction that you gotta go,
here, you've got pretty much total freedom to break things in any direction.
Or so you'd think.
Sometimes the camera doesn't let you move around how you want and
the rest of the time you're facing the best direction anyway at the very start,
so you'll only make it worse by screwing around.
You'd think the possibilities for racking up an impressive score would be endless,
especially with so much random crap to smash up in each area.
Instead, there's pretty much only one optimal way to start each level,
and a few key things to break during a Smashbreaker for a score bonus.
And so it's just a matter of getting lucky with sinking the ball into the hole after that.
And even that is pretty much done for you,
with the ball lined up for a perfect shot if the hole is unobscured.
You can go for trick shots and things like that if you really want to,
but there's not much of a reason to do so,
other than as a personal challenge.
And even then, the requirement to hit the ball into the hole
at the end of each round makes you want to just play it safe.
And playing it safe is the exact opposite thing you should be doing in a game like this.
There were also a few technical issues that turned me off,
like the requirement to use a gamepad when using this on the PC,
like I've been doing here for this video.
They've since added some mouse and keyboard support, and props to 'em for that,
but other issue remain.
The camera! Oh, man, the camera.
It goes back and forth between being sluggish to control
and freakishly fast,
which is a legit problem for things like putting challenges.
And often it's downright unreliable,
either not following your ball or focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong angle,
making your objectives tough to see.
Now that's just when things are going as they should be.
And when things go wrong,
well they REALLY go wrong.
So much for the laws of physics!
There are also some major performance issues on certain maps,
especially irksome seeing as I was playing on a brand new build
with a 6700K CPU
and an overclocked GTX 980 Ti graphics card.
Then there's the online aspect of the game, which I was never able to get working
on either PC I tried this on.
So I can't even comment on how it works.
The local multiplayer works great, though,
and playing with a friend was definitely more fun than playing alone.
But I'd say that's more due to the other person, rather than the game itself.
Combine these setbacks with the fact that Dangerous Golf just
didn't hold up well for me gameplay-wise, and...
ah, it's a palpable disappointment on my end.
Again, I love the concept.
Any game that lets you burst open a bunch of fine china toilet seats
and cheeseburgers with sports equipment
automatically has my attention.
But the gameplay is mediocre and there's
just not enough variety to keep me interested
beyond that initial wow factor when ogling the graphics and the physics model.
If it had a sandbox mode where you could just break a bunch of stuff endlessly,
well that would be pretty awesome, but... it doesn't.
And as it is, the World Tour is more frustrating than enjoyable.
Dangerous Golf may be worth checking out for the novelty alone, but
it's one of those where I would say
wait for a significant price drop before doing so.
[Dangerous Golf theme]
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