WHAT THE GOLF? / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: TRIBAND / PLATFORM: APPLE ARCADE, PC, SWITCH (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Some might say that golf is a good walk ruined and that the “sport” has gone nowhere but dramatically downhill since Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and an exasperated “Mean” Gene Okerlund attempted to help viewers with their putting techniques on WWF’s Rampage ’91 home video tape. For anyone with thoughts such as those, a) congratulations, you’re correct, and b) What The Golf? might be just the game for you!
“The golf game for people who hate golf” (it says here), each hole you visit contains some sort of surprise or other (sounds like a Starburst office party). Endlessly ridiculous, What The Golf? is a physics-based parody of every rich pensioner’s favourite pastime, filled with unexpected absurdities. It’s an incredibly easy game to play – just point the ball with the left stick, then press (or hold then release) a button to take your shot. It’s simple enough to work out where you need to land, but the game will often throw curveballs into the mix without telling you. You might suddenly be controlling a “spider ball” that clings to (and swings from) nearby surfaces, or maybe it’ll be a Flubber-like thing that bounces all over the screen. The Switch’s gyro and/or touchscreen might come into play, or perhaps you might not actually end up hitting the thing you think you’re hitting…
What The Golf? never quite does whatever you might be expecting it to do, and discovering its insane inventiveness never fails to put a big dumb grin on your face. And there are plenty of treats in store for retro game fans, with tons of courses based on popular (and lesser-known) games from the last 30 or so years, from 80s Nintendo classics to modern cult hits like Katamari Damacy and Superhot.
To encourage multiple plays, each course has three objectives that eventually reward the player with a trinket for their trophy cabinet. There’s also a daily challenge, a super-long “impossible” course, and a local two-player mode which is all kinds of fun. It’s all incredibly daft, but also incredibly addictive. If you hate golf, and fancy playing something silly to pass the time, please purchase this game!
