Golf With Your Friends

Well, golf has always been a high life symbol that makes sense only when it’s real. Does anyone think that gold bars, private jets or Louis XIII can be digitalized? Their value maybe can, but not that flavor.

But let’s leave alone that jet set aura and look at it from the eye of a developer. It seems similar to pool: you hit the ball to lay it into a hole, right? Wrong. A pool table is a much simpler playground than a golf field, and golf environment requires a lot, great lot more elaborate job.

Graphics: 4.5

The most interesting thing about Golf With Your Friends game is the environment, and it’s quite good. The ground is curvy, grass and trees around are as real as balls, flags, and borders, and nature is full of sounds. You can enjoy it in the moments your ball is off the field.

Though the visuals are great, they are limited to some locations (named levels). There are four of them: Forest, Twilight, Oasis, and Haunted. They are all gorgeous just like their names, and we’d especially highlight Twilight with its feeling of excessive luxury around, but surely you’ll play Forest the most, as it looks the most classical.

We have experienced no problems with graphics or sounds (despite the developers warning us about “early access” with all its risks). Size and requirements of the game seem reasonable (4 GB on your HDD, 4 GB RAM, 1.8-GHz CPU – core number not given, but we tried it with a Dual-Core Intel i5 and it was quite enough).

Last but not least: you can even customize your ball color. It’s useful when you play online with a lot of other players (up to 11).

Gameplay: 4

Of course, the rules were simplified a bit. You only need to hit one hole at a time, though the whole level contains 18 sublevels (yes, that’s the style!) But the way to it may be harder than you suppose. In the beginning, it looks like a regular field with some landscape curves, but then you get more and more artificial obstacles, some of them moving, and finally, you feel inside a pinball machine.

If there’s more than one player, your comparative results are displayed after each round. If you’re alone, you play against a “shadow” - a virtual AI with average capabilities.

There is a practicing field, but it offers no missions and looks like a sandbox. So you probably won’t need it after you master the controls in Golf With Your Friends.

There are also options of custom rules you can set up. You can set up time and shot limits, allow or disallow ball collision, jumping, bouncing outside the borders, adjust gravity and bouncy ground. These house rules will be seen to those who join the game.

Yes, we’d like to have more levels and a greater variety of game modes, but yes, we remember about “Early Access”, so that’s it.

Controls: 5

All you need is a mouse (how strange it would sound for real golf!) You only need to push the left button to prepare for a shot. Then move your mouse left or right to aim, move it a bit forward or back to adjust power and release the button to make a shot.

When you’re not aiming, just move the camera with the mouse. This can help you watch others play.

So, play a round or two, and you’ll feel like you’ve been playing Golf With Friends for all your life. But keep in mind: that’s what other players feel too.

It’s just as simple with a gamepad. But the keyboard is not involved at all, unless you enter your name or the name of your game.

Replay Value: 5

Unlike RPGs or action games, Golf With Your Friends has no levels you need to climb up unless your own mastery. Your rivals are found online, and they can be random. So you never know who you’re playing against (unless you have friended each other in Steam). Yes, you learn more and more, but other players do as well. Thus, the replayability of this digital golf is close to it of the real one, that is, almost inexhaustible.

In-app purchases

Suddenly none. You only have to pay for it in Steam once. And the price seems quite reasonable: $3.99. Not so much, even for an early access game you inevitably become also a tester for. No in-game purchases or deals offered; pay once, get all.

Conclusion

As posh as golf should be, this game looks great and offers interesting playtime with bizarre field setups and crazy physics. Hey, would some nouveau riche ever try to outshine both Trump and Al Qasimi and make these pinball fields come true for golf? We only can wonder… and play this madness with our friends online now.

• Graphics 4.5
• Gameplay 4
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 5

Pros

Good graphics and physics
Online mode doesn’t require actual rivals
Steam support
Moderate system requirements

Cons

If you expected it to be a realistic golf simulator, you might be disappointed