Golf can be a bit of a dull sport. I really can’t be the only one that thinks that, right? I mean, I don’t mind playing it every so often, but I totally see why other people don’t like it. Well, it would seem that Three Fields Entertainment share that same popular opinion, and they’ve gone ahead and made a game that shows just how much more exciting golf can be if they have anything to say about it.
Who exactly are Three Fields Entertainment? Well, they’re a small indie team consisting of 11 humans and a dog named Piper. The majority of the humans on the team have experience with developing the extremely explosive Burnout series, which is important because Dangerous Golf is essentially a spiritual successor to the Crash Mode that was so very popular within those games.
As I’m sure you’ll remember, Burnout was a series that was defined not just by its driving mechanics but by its strong sense of personality and undeniable love for demolition and destruction. Dangerous Golf follows in the footsteps of the beloved Burnout series with your most common goal being to cause as much destruction as humanly possible.
The best way I can describe Dangerous Golf is this: imagine setting up a driving range in your house, local petrol station, cinema bathroom, restaurant kitchen, and various other everyday places, and just smacking the ball as hard as you physically can so that the ball spontaneously sets itself on fire. If that doesn’t sound absolutely ridiculous, I don’t know just what your idea of absolutely ridiculous is.
As I’ve said, your main goal in Dangerous Golf is causing a tremendous amount of destruction, and that’s really all you’ll be doing. The game takes place over 10 tours, spanning 100 different holes, in a variety of locations across 4 different countries. In other words, there’s 100 levels that all take place in different locations. At least, that’s how it goes for the single player.
Each level, or hole, starts with a flyby view of the location which gives you a good idea of what to pelt your golf ball into to begin your rampage. When the camera swoops down behind the ball, you’ll know it’s your time to strike. In the bottom left hand corner of the screen is an indicator of how many things you need to hit in order to trigger the activation of your Smashbreaker. When enough damage has been dealt, the Smashbreaker can be launched. This is where the real fun begins. Using your Smashbreaker, which is very similar in name and nature to the Crashbreaker in the Burnout series, allows you to control your (somewhat sentient) golf ball to smash in to as many things as you can before the time limit runs out. You might be expecting it, but this aspect of Dangerous Golf is the part that really makes the game stand out as what it is — an absolutely ridiculous, over the top game about golf that really brings back fond memories of hours spent within the Crash mode of Burnout.
While the concept of Dangerous Golf might sound enjoyable, and it really is, it lacks the depth and variation required to give the game the longevity I expected. Now, the Crash mode in Burnout was awesome, not just for the actual crash and destruction part, but for the whole feeling of anticipation — making sure you hit the right thing or launch off of a ramp at the correct angle at the correct speed so that you could absolutely nail the crash and cause as much havoc as you can. Y’see, even though Dangerous Golf follows very much in the same footsteps as Burnout’s Crash mode, the main thing that it lacks is the level of excitement and character that made Burnout so great.
I know that this isn’t a sequel to Burnout but, with the majority of the team being ex-developers of the series, the fact that this game has been strongly influenced by it is undeniable. Being a lone golf ball bouncing around a variety of locations sounds exciting, but when it comes down to it, it gets old pretty quickly. The reason for this being that, even though there are various levels to play, there’s no variety to what you’re actually doing. The Crash mode in Burnout was enjoyable mainly because it was an optional mode whereas, in Dangerous Golf, this is literally all there is to do, which is fine in short bursts of about 30 minute time slots, but playing any longer than that really does make the experience feel more repetitive.
To add some variety to your explosive experience, you have the option to play through the game in its entirety with a co-op partner. Whilst this does add more of a party game feel to Dangerous Golf, it also feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. The two-player mode plays out exactly the same as the single player in almost every aspect. Seriously, the only difference here is that instead of one score appearing at the end of the level, there’s two appearing simultaneously. Player one has their go at wrecking the place, the room resets and then player two has a crack at it. The drawback to the two player mode here is that, just as I said, it’s literally the same thing as playing the game in single player. You’d get the exact same experience if the two players played through the single player portion separately and just watched each other do so.
Another thing that bogs down the experience that Dangerous Golf has to offer is the visuals. The visuals in Dangerous Golf are great, they really are, but the realistic visuals supplied by the Unreal 4 Engine do feel a little bit out of place for just how ridiculous the game is. The visuals really aren’t bad by any means, but I just felt that the game would’ve benefited from having a less realistic graphical style.
I played Dangerous Golf on the PlayStation 4, so I’m not sure about the PC or Xbox One versions of the game, but the version I played was incredibly unstable. I couldn’t go for more than half an hour, or sometimes less, without the game crashing out on me. I get it. Games crash. But the amount of crashes that I experienced whilst playing Dangerous Golf has to be near the top of my list. When I said this game was similar to the Crash mode in Burnout, this isn’t exactly what I meant.
Dangerous Golf is a fun game, but only when played in short bursts, which makes me doubt that it warrants the asking price of $19.99/£14.99. Even though the game boasts its various 100 levels, that doesn’t detract from the fact that the bulk of this game is just the same thing over and over again. If you’re a fan of the Burnout games, I’m sure that this game will really bring back memories of all the mindless destruction experienced in the classic Crash mode. However, when it boils down to it, Dangerous Golf feels more like a filled out tech demo that just doesn’t live up to what it’s trying to follow, yet showcases just what Three Field Entertainment could do with their next game, which I’d personally hope was a true spiritual successor to the series we all know and love.