Golf Club: Wasteland Reviews
Golf Club: Wasteland is a super stylish puzzle-golf game which works better as an interactive drama than a golf game. The shooting system is shallow and brings into the experience too much "trial and error", but the atmosphere, the radio sounds and Charley's meaningful story give a melanchonic and charming dimension to the game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A challenging golf game set in the ruins of a future Earth, Golf Club Wasteland takes this classic sport to new, imaginative heights.
A beautiful blend of whimsical golfing and sardonic commentary wrapped in a blanket of nostalgia and straight-up vibes. Golf Club: Wasteland is a brilliant narrative experience that can't resist imbuing anything and everything with stories.
Golf Club: Wasteland is a masterpiece in the art of telling a big story in a tiny game. Ruins of our Earth, devastated by climate change, speak to the player through the music and the chats of the great Radio Nostalgia and the ironic neon signs of Alphaville. In the meanwhile, the silent Charlie from Mars plays an intense and challenging arcade golf game, where you can never tell what happens next. It's rare to find so much greatness in a small indie game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A golf game for people that don't like golf (though people who do like golf will likely also get a similar kick), Golf Club: Wasteland cleverly interweaves arcade style golf with deep themes and a superbly smooth soundtrack in a bite-sized package that is both utterly unique and impossible to ignore.
Demagog Studio is on to something with Golf Club: Wasteland, and it’s absolutely something they should be proud of. This is a developer I’ll now be watching with a close eye, as I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. Whatever this small Serbian team has in the pot, rest assured I’ll be first in line. Check out Golf Club: Wasteland and the original soundtrack “Radio Nostalgia from Mars.” And bring some tissues.
The mostly laid-back soundtrack and lack of NPCs lends Golf Club Wasteland a chill, lonely atmosphere, which helps to offset some of the more frustrating holes, and the short three or four hour play-time means it never has a chance to outstay its welcome. It's official: Golf Club Wasteland is the best post-apocalyptic golf game on PS4.
Golf Club: Wasteland is one of the best games I’ve played this year. I loved everything about this game from its refined art style to its soundtrack. It’s peculiar alchemy of meditative sport and pointed sentimentality is a sight to behold.
Golf Club: Wasteland is a story made of stories, of messages left by the strongly representative scenography and the testimonies of credible characters without a face. Despite the fact that the production visibly struggles on the gameplay front due to a tenor of challenge that tends to never take off, it must be recognized that the demagog studio proposal can adequately counterbalance the lack of playful depth with a well-kept staging.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Golf Club: Wasteland has a great vibe for its somber and solemn story about the end of the Earth, and I loved the concept behind its world. But it's burdened by a golf game that is simply not all that fun (granted, perhaps it shouldn't be fun to golf on the headstone of humanity). Occasional moments that seemed to portend exciting new golf puzzle mechanics were quickly followed by more lobbing to almost out of reach platforms, made intolerable by frustratingly simple mechanics that seem to have an air of randomness and luck. But while I won't be subjecting myself to Iron Mode, I did thoroughly enjoy the story, art, and music throughout as it plainly commented on the state of the world, making at least one round of golf on this post-apocalyptic world very cathartic indeed.
To add a slight downer on proceedings, neon signs adorning crumbling buildings and barren hills in the background rubbed us the wrong way. To be clear, Golf Club Wasteland isn’t a game for children thanks to the colourful language featured on the radio, but a few of the neon signs were just needlessly childish, if not entirely inappropriate. These featured seemingly random words plucked from the urban dictionary which completely pulled us out of an otherwise pretty engaging and deep narrative. Not enough to totally spoil our pleasant little post-apocalyptic walk, but enough to be irritating.
Golf Club: Wasteland is a rather standard golf game bolstered by an experimental narrative approach. This iteration is, have no doubt, an improvement on the niche ideas therein, and for that, I applaud the developers. However, good as these ideas are, they suffer from feeling incompatible with each other. Everything is OK, with the distinct sting of feeling like they could have been great, given the right conditions.
There’s no shortage of story in this golf adventure around a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Telling a cautionary tale about society isn't usually the goal of an arcade sport game, but that's exactly what Golf Club Wasteland does. That it's also fun to play is a nice bonus, providing an oddly relaxing and challenging experience for puzzle and platforming fans alike.
Despite some minor design flaws, Golf Club Wasteland is a solid, if depressing, round of golf on post-apocalyptic Earth.
It's worth noting that the audio is on a loop and you will eventually run out of new content from the radio station, but it's an incredibly effective oral storytelling mechanic. Seeing as this is Demagog Studio's first outing, I am very keen to see how they grow as a developer. There is some amazing talent and creativity on display, and should all the pieces fall into place, barring ecological catastrophe, their next title would be one to watch out "fore.
Golf Club: Wasteland is a good game but not because of the quality of its actual golfing experience. Putting balls into holes is serviceable. There are some well-designed levels but there are also some frustrating ones. Don’t feel any guilt if you play on Story mode and get as much of the narrative as you can, without bothering with hazards or limits.
Funny but too short golf game with desolate Earth and low variability.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Ultimately, the main impression we've taken away from Golf Club: Wasteland is that it's an alright golf game on its own, but it's really not about the golf. You'll want to settle in with a nice pair of headphones when playing this one, let the game suck you into its unique concept and narrative, and we think you'll have a really good time with it. At a standard price of £8.29 / $9.99, it's a definitely a reasonable fee for an other-worldly round of golf.