Team 17's Golf With Your Friends has arrived on the Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. The party mini-golf game banks on being a chaotic mix of silly multiplayer fun and precision golfing play. While Golf With Your Friends can certainly bring some hole-in-one laughs to a group of friends, it strikes a bogey in terms of a few key development choices and execution by its developer.
The core gameplay of Golf With Your Friends is simple enough as a standard mini-golf experience. Players have the ability to use the analog stick to aim the golf ball in any direction and use the power indicator to adjust the strength of the shot. There is even the ability to put some spin on the ball with the left thumbstick, ala a PGA pro striking the ball in 2K's newly announced PGA Tour 2K21. Once the shot is lined up, the power set, and spin added, a simple button tap will send the ball flying. The controls aren't complex, which is a good thing.
The problem is the precision in Golf With Your Friends is not what players might want. For example, when powering up a hit, it seems very difficult to find the sweet spot between a nice touch tap for a 5-foot putt and striking the ball 30 feet down the course. And when it comes to most long shots to get the ball towards the "green" on the various courses, just smacking the ball full power often does the trick, which takes away from any strategy. And even as a goofy arcade game, strategy needs to be a part of the experience still which is something that Mario Golf does well.
The game is also not without glitches, as geometry sometimes feels wonky and the ball can even get stuck outside of the playing field. In normal circumstances, if the ball flys outside of the field of play it will reset and go back to the origin of the shot. However, there are some spots in the map where the game doesn't realize that it is "out of bounds" and players are forced to retire the hole and take the max stroke penalty. What's worse, in some game modes, there is no max stroke penalty, so if this happens, the player needs to quit the game entirely.
There is a beneficial ability called "Free Cam" which allows players to fly through the sky like a Lakitu from Mario so that they can scope out the course. It's a helpful tool for finding out where the hole is and how to navigate the course, especially on the trickier holes. But the problem is that the thumbsticks are used to move around in "Free Cam," so when doing this the game thinks that the player wants to add spin to the ball (since the thumbsticks are also used to add spin). So when the player comes back it's entirely possible to forget that spin was applied, set up a perfectly aimed shot, and watch the shot spin in a strange direction. Additionally, after applying spin, the ball can't go back to a perfectly straight shot again, there will always be a slight spin on it. All of this renders the awesome "Free Cam" option as something that is almost scary to use.
There are 11 courses to enjoy in Golf With Your Friends, and this is where the game thrives. They range from being simplistic, like Forest, to straight-up bonkers courses like Museum. Each course usually starts out with a relatively easy few holes, but by the time the back 9 has rolled around, the course ramps up to some truly difficult holes. It would be nice if Team 17 had indicated a difficulty level for each course, even as all of them are tough. If Oasis and Forest were marked as "Regular" while Haunted House was marked with "Hard," for example, it would help players know what they are getting into. Some levels get absolutely insane, but in a fun way, with the Worms-themed course, meant to tie in with the new Worms game coming this year, really upping the ante.
If playing alone, Golf With Your Friends may get a bit dull, but the fun of the title is blasting away with a dozen balls flying down the course. Instead of many golf games that require players to take turns, Golf With Your Friends allows everyone to play at the same time, which means chaos in the best ways possible. It also takes a bit away from some of the laugh out loud moments, when someone does something hilarious but no one was even able to see it. For anyone who does make the ball into the hole, they are then able to watch the others take their shots until the hole is completed. This take on the multiplayer experience speeds up what can often be a lengthy game of golf and makes it quite fun.
There are multiple game modes to choose from in Golf With Your Friends, and the host of the online match can also alter the settings in some interesting ways. Basketball asks players to hop up and dunk the golf ball in the basket, like an old-school basketball game, but this is more infuriating than fun. In Hockey, the hole is replaced with a net and a tricky goalie, while the ball is replaced with a puck. The mode is fun for a round, but standard golf is what players will gravitate towards most likely. In the end, Classic and Party Mode will probably be the go-to modes. Classic is just old-fashion golf, while Party Mode adds collision elements to the golf balls and places powerups around the map like the ability to hop in the air, place down sticky honey, and more. The host can also change up settings like altering the ball shape to be a star, but the curiosity of this is that the host can't choose to only play 9-holes or something along those lines. It seems like most hosts would rather have the ability to play a quicker match than roll around as a rectangle.
Visually, Golf With Your Friends looks rough around the edges. At times, the game can also chug and drop in frame-rate, especially on levels like Space Station that have a lot going on. The music feels about right for being a family-friendly party game title with themes for the various courses, but there is a charm that is missing from the game. While titles like Worms have wonderful voiceovers that bring laughter and joy, the same exact "chime" is played whether the player gets a par or a triple bogey.
Each day players can unlock up to three customizable items for their golfball by simply playing the game. Every 45 minutes, and after completing a course, a new hat, trail, or floaty is acquired randomly. It would have been nice to be able to unlock items by challenges instead. Still, the incentive to come back and keep playing the game is there, so that everyone can get there own fun customizable gear.
Golf With Your Friends has been playable on Steam for a few years, so it is a bit disappointing that the game has been ported over to consoles with some of its flaws. The Steam version also has a course creator that the console version doesn't have, although Team 17 says it may arrive at some point. Still, playing with friends online and seeing all the golf balls fly down the course can certainly be fun. The game lacks the depth of many other golf games, so for enthusiasts of the genre, the title may not be up to par. But for someone looking for a laugh with friends, as a party game Golf With Your Friends is less of a whiff and can assuredly be enjoyed.
Golf With Your Friends is out now on Steam, Xbox One, Switch, and PS4. Game ZXC was provided an Xbox One code for this review.
