Golf Club: Wasteland [Xbox]
Demagog Studio’s Golf Club: Wasteland is an atmospheric golf game that sees you visiting a now desolate Earth, for a peaceful, if eerie, round of golf. Human life on Earth has been completely wiped out; the rich set off for Mars - creating Tesla City as their new home - leaving Earth behind as nothing but a wasteland… until they realised they could pop back and use it as a golf course!
After the first few tutorial-like levels, you are given the option of playing in Story Mode, a pressure-free run that allows an infinite number of shots on each hole; Challenge Mode, where you have a par to stick to; and Iron Mode, which is only unlocked after completing Challenge mode and requires no mistakes (not for the faint of heart!). If you start the game going through Challenge Mode, there is the option to switch to Story Mode, however there’s no turning back after doing so, aside from starting a new game. It’s good that the option is there, as there are definitely a few levels that felt pretty difficult to achieve under par, until I suddenly got lucky. You’ll unlock diary pages throughout the levels, by completing a hole in a certain number of strokes under par, and these expand upon your backstory prior to the Mars mission, as well as your thoughts on different sights you see on your visit.
Visually, Golf Club: Wasteland has a very post-apocalyptic, dystopian look, with everywhere being totally devoid of human life aside from our little astro-golfer, and a strange figure that you’ll spot blending in with the scenery, sometimes catching you totally off guard. The foreground is fantastically utilised too, adding to the overgrown, uncared for state that the world is now in. The character animations for the golfer are great, with defeated little backwards leans anytime you miss. He is a tad slow however, and whilst it makes sense, it wouldn’t hurt to speed things up a little! Damaged buildings with muted colour schemes, with a bright pop from the neon lights shining overhead, gives everything an almost eerie vibe. There are various pipes that you’ll spot that will bypass sections of the level (albeit some will trick you, plopping you into water!), and these help in making things a little easier for you, as well as different buttons you can trigger to help or hinder you. These are usually done in brighter colours than the otherwise dull scenery, drawing your eye to them and piquing your interest, but actually reaching them is the hard part, as you’ve got to be pretty precise for the small buttons and pipes - I even managed to get the ball through a basketball hoop when that caught my attention, and it felt great to nab that achievement.
The music works perfectly, with a very melancholic trance vibe to it, with tunes that are hauntingly beautiful. There’s often a darkly humourous tone to the lyrics, which just adds to the overall bleakness of the world. It plays via a radio station known as Nostalgia Radio - which is fitting, as many of the tracks do feel very nostalgic - with a presenter’s voiceover heard between tracks, as well as different people being brought on to talk about their memories of Earth. The tracks blend over multiple levels, and sometimes the signal will cut out - for instance, when underground - which makes it all feel very well connected, and even when the broadcast loops, it feels very authentic with an announcement of the transmission repeating due to limited bandwidth. Listening to the various discussions is interesting, and filled with the bleak realities of life on Mars, such as how showering is limited to 30 seconds per person, with the use of recycled rat urine potentially being removed - further docking three seconds of everyone’s shower-time. Maybe abandoning Earth wasn’t such a great idea after all?
Golf Club: Wasteland feels enjoyable to play, making you feel in control of every shot you take. Missed shots can feel frustrating, but that’s just natural frustration as opposed to the game causing me to miss. Just my own damn fault! It feels very chilled and relaxed throughout, as you can really just take your time with each hole - even if your ball self-destructs a few times for going over par - and the whole vibe of the game just feels very mysterious. Levels definitely get more challenging as you progress, although the difficulty did seem to plateau after a point and got a little easier again - and whilst there were a few holes that took way longer to figure out than the average, it is satisfying to sink your ball - especially if you’ve located one of the shortcuts to make things easier for you!
Available for £8.39 on the Xbox Store, this is a golf game that feels great, and has plenty of story and emotion tangled all throughout. As mentioned, you’ve got the Diary Pages to unlock, giving you snippets of info from our character’s life, but you also will unlock their ‘Odyssey’ after finishing the story, which is a 55 page graphic novel segment that further provides info on Charlie’s journey, undoubtedly tugging on your heart strings. Additionally, you will be able to download the full soundtrack via a QR code shown at the end, and I’d highly recommend this as the tracks are just out of this world.
In the end, we decided to give Golf Club: Wasteland the Collecting Asylum rating of 9/10.
Have you played Golf Club: Wasteland yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Untold Tales for the Golf Club: Wasteland Xbox review code!
