Golfing games have always been a hit- or miss sports game. Either they’re good or horribly bad. Yet it still attracts a decent amount of fans that enjoy these kinds of games. Even attracting some bigger names, tiger woods anyone?! Sure I’m not saying that they were good, but it still proves that it has potential! So of course, you’d think that a party game around golfing would be an amazing thing, right? Well, that’s for us to discover. With up to 8 players, you can have some couch competition with your friends and loved ones! But want to know if it’s worth a buy? Grab a caddy, put on your brown slacks and let’s see if this party golf is a hole in one, or if you’re going to be digging a hole for yourself while playing!
- A lot of modes!: One thing that won’t be said about Party Golf, is the lack of modes or creativity that was put into them! Some modes, of course, are questionable (more on these ones later) but overall a lot of them are actually pretty fun to play around with. One of my favorites was the bikes golf. This is a mode where you can give your ball some gas with your power-ups, and “steer” it towards the put. To make it easier to read, these modes are put in categories, otherwise, this would be one long list for you go through and no one wants to be scrolling through countless of different modes just to find your specific one.
- 8 player co-op: Yup, that’s right, you can absolutely play with game with 7 more friends or family! Sure you’ll be sharing controllers but is that really such a bad thing? Of course, if you’ve got grungy hands, passing it on to the next one but hey. That shouldn’t be a problem, right? For the developers to even think about just adding 8 players is amazing, as couch co-op games (that are good) are a rare find!
- Questionable Modes: When you’ve got this many modes in a game, you’ll surely encounter modes that are highly questionable. For instance, golfing with bricks. This mode was anything but fun to play. First, the aiming and weight of the brick made taking shots a tough chore to slog through. Add to this that a lot of the maps have slopes which would just reset your shot. Most of my sessions with this mode didn’t get further than a few meters and then some… Sure it might be a good idea, but fleshed out? It is not…
- Questionable frame rate: One of the more annoying griefs you’ll be having is that, even though the game plays smoothly, the frame rate tends to dip at times. Something I understand with all that clutter on the map (more on this later). It’s kind of sad that this happens, especially in a game that isn’t even intense on the graphics card! I surely hope that this will be patched out soon otherwise this will become a party game you’d rather skip then own…
- Soundtrack: Well, that’s actually it. Just a track. On a loop. I don’t know if there are more tracks in this game and that it randomly selects a track. Maybe I just lucked out and I had the game constantly shuffle that track? I don’t know. But as it stands, Party Golf’s audio is dull and boring and really doesn’t attract me into playing more of it. Something tells me they should’ve cut out some modes, and added a few fun tracks to make this a staple at family get-togethers…
- Fade those lines OUT!: My GOD I hate these tracer lines!!! Let me explain. Each time that you make a shot, you’ll see the arc as to how your ball, banana, sumo, brick,… went. A new arch gets added each and every time ANYONE takes a shot. Sure no problem, it could be helpful at the start to see how far your next arc should go and where it should not. But after the third shot, your screen will be nothing BUT arcs. Good luck trying to find your ball or shot-line in all that mess… I don’t know why they don’t just fade them out of existence the moment you have hit your thing 3 times or more… Blergh…
Score: 72%
Party Golf would’ve been an amazing addition to add to your party game collection. We all have these, from SingStar to Mario party and so on. If not for the questionable decisions that were made about a few facets of the game. Sure you’ll be having some quick laughs here and there but it’ll tend to become pretty stale after a while. But yes, while I may sound harsh it still acts and feels like a party game, so look for it when it’s on sale, is my best bet!
Developer: Giant Margarita Publisher: Giant Margarita
Played on: Xbox One X Also available on: PS4 – Switch and PC
Alexis spent 4 hours mashing his wood against a ball, hoping it would get a hole in one
Achievement difficulty for 1000 Gamerscore: 10 – 15 hours would probably be more than enough. Some might be tricky to get.
Perfect for: Co-op players! Party-gamers!
Xbox Game Store link: Click here