14 DAY TRIAL // The Golf Club is an ambitious project that aims to deliver a very accurate simulation of the sport of golf, made by the team at HB Studios, and the game will include a powerful course creator, cooperative play and many social elements.
I have never played real-world golf, but at certain points during my video game playing years, I have come across titles that simulate the sport that have captured my attention to such extent that I abandoned other titles altogether.
The Golf Club has the potential to do something similar when it is launched as a fully-fledged product and the Early Access version of the title on Steam shows a glimpse of what the title can offer.
The development team aims for realism and the user interface is designed to quickly give players information about the wind speed, the layout of the course and the best way they can approach the hole without getting stranded anywhere.
I have played the game with both a gamepad and with a mouse and keyboard on the PC and it controls well using both methods.
The console controller seemed more suited to the task and it’s easy to use the left stick to aim a shot and the right to determine the power of the swing.
But The Golf Club is anything but easy and I have often carefully prepared a shot only to slip a little while using the right stick, which resulted in major errors that took plenty of shots to recover from.
The game involves a trial and error process for every player and I have played for more than one hour before I was able to get a solid grip on how hard I should swing and how much of a role the wind and the terrain played.
The Course design tool is also powerful and rather intuitive, quickly generating some interesting challenges for the player, even if some holes are weirdly placed at times.
The physics of the ball seem a little weird at the moment, but there’s plenty of time for The Golf Club to become a solid simulation of the sport with some innovative features.
Take a look at the attached video to get a sense of how The Golf Club currently looks and plays.
Launch on the PC, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony will take place at some point before the end of the year and those who are interested can pick up the Steam Early Access right now.
