FORE! Cover Your Heads, It's Golf War
In another part of my life I write these rules. One of the rules - in fact, the one that inspired them all - goes as follows:
"If you think of an excellent punning name for a shop or business, you must quit your job there and then, and begin that enterprise immediately."
It was inspired by finding this sign, which can only have been a result of someone knowing the rule to be true. The thing is, I'm not sure this rule applies to videogames.
Golf War is a good pun, but a horrible idea for a game.
It's also, sadly, a dreadful game. Made in UDK, it's bordering on unplayable. And it's a close race for whether that's because it's such a mess, or because it's such extraordinary bad taste.
Set in "the war torn Middle East", it's a golf game set in a town filled with people and IEDs. Your goal is to hit a golf ball across the town until it lands in a skip. To do this you must climb in third person on rooftops, through alleyways, and all the while get knocked about by explosions. There's six levels in what they're boldly calling a "demo".
The game was created as a final year project in a game development degree in the Queensland University of Technology, in Brisbane. I hope they won't take too much offence at my wondering if they passed.
There's actually a seed of an idea in here. A golf game played through the streets of a city could be enormous fun. The daftness of hitting the ball up onto tall buildings, so as to thwack it long distances, over ballparks, and into a museum garden, could be pretty decent. It would require some impressive city design, and perhaps even the first inklings of golf controls. And maybe not trivialise the tragedy of terrorism in populated towns.
So, er, no.
Here's a trailer!
