House of Golf 2 | PC Demo Review
Who doesn’t love miniature golf? It’s the stereotypical go-to date for many romantic comedies, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’s never taken a “swing” at it. Personally, I have fond memories of my father taking me mini golfing at a very young age. There have been countless attempts at bringing the game to video games. House of Golf 2 from Starlight Games could be a solid entry into the genre. Unfortunately, I’ve only experienced the game on my Steam Deck, and despite my many attempts to alter the settings, I couldn’t get the game to work in a playable state that shows off its graphical potential. I wasn’t able to play it on any other platform for comparison, so hopefully this is merely a case for a game that isn’t optimized for Valve’s handheld console.
The Comforts of Home
The novelty of House of Golf 2 lies in its setting. Instead of playing miniature golf on an outdoor course, you’re navigating your ball through a child’s bedroom. The path to each hole’s flag comes with obstacles including toys, race tracks, food items, and anything else you can imagine populating your own bedroom as a kid. It reminds me of Micro Machines on the NES rom 1991. This makes for a very fun and inviting method in which to play and ignites imagination and nostalgia in one fell swoop.
The gameplay is much simpler than traditional golf games. You won’t see a “three point stroke” mechanic that most are familiar with. Instead, you merely point in the direction that you want the ball to go, raise a power meter to your desired strength, and shoot. I like this approach much better, as it allows for more precision without worrying about pesky timing mechanics. Fans of Golf With Your Friends will feel right at home here.
House of Golf 2 adds collectibles to offer an extended challenge. Often, holes will have more than one path to take towards the flag, some being hidden. These alternative methods to complete the hole may contain medals you can pick up to rack up higher scores on holes. It’s an interesting way to add some legs to a traditional golf game, although I struggle to choose between picking up items or focusing on getting as close to par as possible.
Something’s Missing
As this was merely a demo, I didn’t get a chance to see how multiplayer functionality worked. With that said, I didn’t see an option to play simultaneously with a group of friends. This was a huge draw for Golf With Your Friends, as it streamlined playing with several people at once without impeding on each other’s shots. If this isn’t available in the final release, I think it will be a huge miss. Sure, it’s fun to go through courses on your own, but nothing beats doing so alongside some buddies.
As mentioned above, I played this demo on Steam Deck. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t a great experience on this platform. With default settings, the framerate was so low that I could consider it unplayable. I was able to fiddle with the settings to lower certain graphical aspects to allow me to play, but it was still far from perfect. In order to make it playable, I had to lower the resolution so low that the ball and everything in the environment had jagged edges on them. This is definitely not what the developer intended.
I’ll say it again, but please understand that this is the only platform on which I played. I’m a Mac guy, which limits my PC gaming a great deal. Don’t judge this game on my review alone, as I feel confident that this will work much better on a PC or even on console.
House of Golf 2 Final Verdict
It feels almost unfair for me to judge this game based on my experience. When I got it to work, I really enjoyed what I played of House of Golf 2. But I wasn’t compelled to continue as far as I would have liked because of my issues mentioned above. With that said, I’m really looking forward to playing this on another platform. I’m a sucker for golf games in general, and the playful nature of nostalgia makes it very attractive to me. Keep an eye out for this one.
To hear me talk more about the demo for House of Golf 2, be sure to listen to our July 3rd, 2024 podcast episode around the 1:13:09 time stamp.
This review is based on a PC demo copy of House of Golf 2 provided by 4media Group for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
