Golf Club: Wasteland

 PC
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. PLAY! Zine
    Nov 16, 2021
    90
    Impressively interesting title which takes you golfing in a dystopian wasteland called Earth. While golfing your way through abandoned cities and listening to a Martian radio station, you will discover what had really happened to our once great society. Golf Club Wasteland is using nonlinear storytelling to a great extent and it is a truly amazing experience.
  2. CGMagazine
    Sep 17, 2021
    85
    There’s no shortage of story in this golf adventure around a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
  3. Softpedia
    Sep 13, 2021
    85
    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. But the developers at Demagog understand how to create atmosphere and how to let the world tell a story. Radio Nostalgia is an impressive achievement, especially the songs. The team does need to find a game theme and a set of mechanics that allows them to flex their world-building muscles in more expansive ways than Golf Club: Wasteland can.
  5. Multiplayer.it
    Sep 3, 2021
    85
    If you are in search of a good golf game, leave it be, but if you want a good story, you will find one of the most significant games of the year.
  6. GamingTrend
    Sep 2, 2021
    85
    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.
  7. Jeuxvideo.com
    Sep 2, 2021
    80
    Golf Club: Wasteland can be seen as a kind of skillful outlet, a highly relaxing experience carried by a peculiar post-apocalyptic vibe and effective minimalist gameplay. In particular, we get an impeccable soundtrack, intelligently alternating between musics and precious testimonials for the scenario context. And if the adventure is short, it is given good replayability.
  8. The Indie Game Website
    Sep 3, 2021
    75
    In the end, however, Golf Club Wasteland didn’t need to sell me on its main character for it to work. It tells more than a story about one person or one moment. Instead, its strength is in the world it creates, the microstories of each level, and the layers of social critique in each part of its radio broadcasts. The rich will watch the world burn and complain about the glare―best make sure that golf course is shady.
  9. IGN Italia
    Sep 2, 2021
    72
    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.
  10. CD-Action
    Jan 19, 2022
    70
    It could have been a relaxing game about playing golf on the ruins of our civilization, but its whole sporting aspect is subpar (due to poor physics, among others), sometimes frustrating, and makes it harder to appreciate the story. However, Golf Club: Wasteland definitely has its unique flavor and the in-game radio station is fantastic. [12/2021, p.67]
    All this publication's reviews
  11. Checkpoint Gaming
    Sep 2, 2021
    60
    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.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

?
  1. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Sep 3, 2021
    If anything, the game's built-in radio station is its greatest weapon against any grinding or gnashing of teeth. It's just so darn soothing, playing a mix of poppy, lo-fi music and calm, softly-spoken listener stories that help fill in some of the game's wider backstory (in multiple languages, too, which is a nice touch). I'd happily listen to it as a real-life radio station if I'm honest, and I liked how constant and uninterrupted it was, too, playing whether you're navigating the menu to restart a level or moving between stages. It really helps to keep you in the overall golf groove, and it was one of my favourite parts of the entire game. Sure, life up on the red planet might not be much better than it is down here, based on the little story snippets you glean from the radio now and again, but man, when the golfing is this good, what an extraordinary bit of escapism. Let's go another round, shall we?

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 10
  3. Negative: 2 out of 10
  1. AllNewSuperfake
    Oct 3, 2021
    5
    Now here's a game that makes a great case for how to ruin your narrative by including it in a videogame:

    By combining it with a pretty    Now here's a game that makes a great case for how to ruin your narrative by including it in a videogame:

    By combining it with a pretty terrible golf simulation. While I really like the worldbuilding and the story that is unfolding, and I love the radio station that is playing in the background, it's like reading a nice book... that came with an arbitrary chore that you have to perform before you are allowed to turn the page. Even if that chore was fun and not riddled with terrible controls and cheap physics, why would you put that in your book? There is of course the slightly heavy handed metaphore about how evil and mindless rich people are, but I get it! I got it in the first level. I actually got it in the first 10 seconds of the trailer.

    And yes, it's a very nice metaphore, I wholeheartedly support the politics behind it, but the way it's used here all that's missing is Ben Garrison labeling everything. And while the cartoon apocalypse looks nice, it's not adding anything to the storytelling, since the golf course is taking up the visuals.

    So, what next? Shakespeare as a platformer? They could still turn this into a great comic, so how about that?    … Full Review »
  2. VidGamingFather
    Nov 11, 2022
    6
    My Video Review can be found here:
    https://youtu.be/Vy6KTkhk1ZU
    Is Golf Club Wastelands the game experience that one shouldn’t miss or is    My Video Review can be found here:
    https://youtu.be/Vy6KTkhk1ZU

    Is Golf Club Wastelands the game experience that one shouldn’t miss or is it just a waste of time? Here are the game pros - three storylines with at least two worth to follow, inventive level design, variable environments, perfect dystopian atmosphere, beautiful graphics, great music, narration and fully dubbed people’s stories broadcasted by The Radio Nostalgia From Mars. And here are the game downsides - not very interesting story of the main hero that needs to be unlocked, unpredictable power of strokes that changes by some non-linear curve, absence of skills or other RPG elements that could be developed, no information about the pars and no score or online leaderboard where one could compare his result with others.

    Pros:
    - three storylines
    - level design
    - variety of environment
    - dystopian atmosphere
    - graphics
    - music
    - The Radio Nostalgia from Mars

    Cons:
    - storyline of the main hero is not so interesting
    - unpredictable power of strokes
    - no skills or other RPG elements
    - absence of online leaderboard
    - no explicit information about pars
    - absence of local multiplayer

    This game could be much better with the predictable controls, some RPG elements, some score system with online leaderboard and also the presence of some form of a local multiplayer as a separate game mode. I have still enjoyed this game but ironically more because of the game atmosphere and radio broadcast than the golf itself. I am therefore giving this game Thumbs Up and VideoGaming Father’s Index 6+ out of 10 - still recommended but with some bigger discount.    … Full Review »
  3. teatom
    Oct 5, 2021
    2
    A great premise and fantastic presentation, utterly ruined by the worst implementation of controls I've ever seen in a golf game.
    It might as    A great premise and fantastic presentation, utterly ruined by the worst implementation of controls I've ever seen in a golf game.
    It might as well be a dice roll, if you're using a control pad, as the pitch and power controls (yes, the same basic control scheme you've used in games like Worms and Angry Birds to great effect, for decades) here are deemed to be too easy, so the developer has taken this tried and true system and added random glitching to the controller action to make playing a purposefully vague and frustrating experience, rather than a challenging and rewarding one.
    It's as if, playing Angry Birds, someone was grabbing your arm and shaking it fifty times a second, because they think it all adds to the fun of the experience.
    They are wrong and so is Untold Tales.
    It's a baffling decision to purposefully sabotage a games controls, simply to add difficulty to a game, rather than having better level design, but unfortunately it's also the kind of decision that tells you, no matter how good the overall presentation is, the studio has a bad game designer at the helm, who doesn't really understand the user experience, and who doesn't hold enjoyment as a core principle of a games appeal.
    'If you want an enjoyable game, don't bother with Golf Club: Wasteland, that's not what it's here for.'
    Unfortunately that's a message the developer is transmitting loud and clear, and it's one people looking for fun should heed.    … Full Review »
See all user reviews »