Overdue Reviews is an occasional series in which I pretend to be a videogame journalist. This week: Golf Club Nostalgia.
Golf Club Nostalgia is a thoughtful and sombre tale marred by an infrequently infuriating golf game.
It's a post-apocalyptic vision of the future where humankind has fled to Mars and Earth is a deserted wasteland visited only by super rich individuals whose purpose is to play golf. Courses are played in 2D across abandoned cityscapes and factories, sometimes with moving or interactive elements. Scoring par is rewarded with more detail from the backstory, and there are hints of survivors among the ruins.
This is accompanied by a radio show broadcasting music and stories of people's experiences during the events that shaped this world. The audio in particular very well crafted - intriguing and haunting, yet somehow grounded and believable.
Unfortunately there are moments where it's really frustratingly difficult. Most golf games have aids to help gauge where the ball is going to go and how powerfully it will move. Golf Club Nostalgia has implemented the most bare bones version of this - a single arrow of varying length that provides very little indication of where the ball will land. This is compounded by differing starting zoom levels between courses (you can zoom in and out, but it's still easy to lose track) and courses that frequently go up - meaning one missed shot can take you right back to the start.
I really, really want to like Golf Club Nostalgia. I hope that I'm just bad at golf games and that someone else wouldn't struggle like I did. I played it to the end (you're allowed to skip courses) and the story and overall presentation were great. There were even a few enjoyable courses, particularly the ones where I figured out a clever shortcut and gained an achievement for my efforts. But the bits in between, where it was so annoying that I just turned it off and walked away - marred what would otherwise be a gentle and interesting painting of isolation and loss.