Dangerous Golf is a new take in an old game where you hit the gold ball and instead of getting into the hold, you try to do as much damage as you can to rack up points to get medals and the highest score.
General Gameplay
The gameplay is simple, hit the golf ball into as many objects that you can break and then try to break more objects to get a bonus score. It is in essence a miniature golf game where there are objects in the way to the hole.
Audio
Lots of explosions, smashing, and destruction to the sound, a light metal rift to the ambient sound, however what is surprising is that there is not much more in the sound department. The game does support headphones, and surround sound but there is not much here. For the parents out there, the game does not contain anything that would be questionable for any family gaming members in the form of language or anything that is not appropriate.
Visuals
The game looks very muted and dated in its graphics, there is not much to say other than objects that will either explode and/or shatter when hit. Some interesting level design for the game but nothing that would hold the attention for anyone. Also the game does do a good job of balance of colors so family member that have a hard time seeing colors on screen will not have a hard time playing this title.
Controls
The controls are simple, left stick to hit the ball, B button to start the “smashbreaker” after hitting the ball to cause more damage, get closer to the level goal and also to find hidden secrets. The game allows you to a degree to control the ball in the “smashbreaker” state to guide it but there is not much for the control to go with. In our playtest we did see that at times that ball will get stuck and also will not bounce in the desired direction that you want it to. Also with our special needs gamers they were getting frustrated with the game and the controls as they were getting harder to control the ball to get the effect that is needed to progress in the game.
Delivery
If you are looking for a golf or a mini golf game, then this is not the game for that. Dangerous Golf is a game that packages itself as a golf game but the game premise is that destruction is what makes the game move forward. There are other games out in the market that do this, and honestly are more designed for this type of game play. What makes this not a golf game is that it tried to package itself as one and it is not. From our playtest we have seen that as you go up in the levels that the game difficulty gets more increase and that the objectives are less told to the player and more it becomes a trial and error type of gameplay. Also with almost all of the gamers that we tested this with, after a few hours of gameplay, they felt that there was nothing more to the game itself and wanted to play another title. The game has a multiplayer element to it but with lacking level design, objectives and just repeat gameplay it was a just a boring and lackluster event.
Family Friendly
The game is not a golf game, a fun single player, or even co-op game. The game itself is a wrecking game that is trying to package itself within a golf theme. The controls are easy to get but hard to use, the music is not inspiring or even something that you will remember well after the game is over, the level design is basic at best and worst of all it is not even a fun wrecking game even in co-op. Even in our play testing with our family gaming members and most of them just got bored of playing this title. If you are in the market for a golf game, there are others out there that can fill that need for golfing, if you are also in the market for a wrecking game, there are other titles out there that can be a better fit for your digital library. When it comes down to it Dangerous Golf is not a fun game. Is it family friendly, yes and no, it is a fun family title that can be played by the family, no. The game has no type of direction, it gets increasingly harder and there is no learning curve in this game. The load times are longer than the game itself and overall it just seems like a rushed game. This is one that we cannot recommend to anyone to have.
Closing
Dangerous Golf just fails to be fun for the family, with difficult levels, limited gameplay and design, the game just get flat real fast. There was potential to make this a great game, but it just misses the point in the end.
