Normal Golf Game Review (PC): Twice As Frustrating As Normal Golf and Infinitely More Rewarding

The game of golf can be a quite rewarding process to some. Stepping out onto the luscious green grass, hitting the ball off into the distance, and then ultimately wanting to tear your hair out because you shanked it into a pond is something that I have experienced. Normal Golf Game is just as you’d expect, a normal game of golf with all the annoyances of needing to check the wind, set your stance, and trying desperately not to slam your club into the ground and instead hit the ball in a way that hopefully gets you closer to the green. With the grace of a elderly man with numerous motor issues, I tried my hand at smacking the ball around, and managed to have a great time. Normal Golf Game captured the love of the sport, added twice the annoyance, and yet managed to make it feel infinitely more rewarding than the real thing.

Frustration At Its Finest

Normal Golf Game is one of those titles that nitpicks every last detail of something that is normally second nature or has become muscle memory. A normal golf swing is now turned into a mash-up of button presses to control the tilt, spin, angle, and momentum, with one hand operating the different aspects of the swing and the other swinging the club. At first, it is a bit nauseating, as it takes everything that would normally be a few button presses and makes you constantly navigate the screen, paying attention to every detail.

As you would guess, this means that you will be missing your shot… a lot. Which happened to me consistently. As time went on, however, I didn’t get much better, but that is the point. The frustration was infuriating, and I gave up on tasks on numerous occasions, but I stuck it out, completed every hole, and even completed the ultimate challenge, and somehow, through all the frustration, the game gave me this immense sense of accomplishment.

When everything is a hurdle to overcome, accomplishing even the simplest of tasks feels like a victory, and with some of the challenges requiring you to perform insane trick shots like landing the ball in a hole from over 250 yards away or skip a ball across the water over eight times, it feels like you just performed the impossible. Seriously, it was one of the few times I actively shouted “Yes!” and raised my arms when completing a challenge, and that alone made me feel exhilarated.

Let’s Head To The Caddy Shack

Believe it or not, there is a story tied to this game. When you arrive, your car is towed, you are told you owe a ton of money, and fall into debt. From there, you need to complete tasks, leading up to the ultimate challenge to earn your money back and be allowed to leave. It is a story that you are guided through by the game’s creator who talks to you via various security cameras.

It is a simple story, but the creator had great comedic timing. I looked forward to each of the little chats, as they were a small highlight that made the recurring torture feel less agonizing and more like a friend poking fun. Slowly building my way up to the ultimate challenge was a blast, and I audibly laughed out loud at a few of the lines of dialogue along the way.

There are two endings to the game, which I won’t spoil here, but one requires a bit of a grind that is worth it if you don’t mind spending hours upon hours smacking a ball around.

The Verdict

Normal Golf Game takes a simple, standard, and dare I say normal sport, and turns it into something that is frustrating beyond belief. If you are someone who will actively scream and throw a mouse across the room, I don’t suggest getting this game, but if you can keep a level head, go out onto the green, and smack the ball around for a while without feeling the sting of annoyance each time you miss a shot, then you should check out Normal Golf Game. The developer did a fantastic job at making the game just rewarding enough that if you can survive the mind-numbing repetitiveness of swinging a club over and over, then you may just scream in excitement when you sink that putt, or at the very least give yourself a small golf clap.

Normal Golf Game was reviewed on PC with a code provided by Luke Muscat.

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