a complex sim with poor explanations of its mechanics
I was looking for a golf game that reminded me of the 90's sim-type, thus I came across this franchise. This game is not a bad match for what I was looking for, but it does have a number of significant problems.
The best things about The Golf Club 2:
- a large of number of courses to play on, the vast majority of them being user-created, all easily accessed in the game and enough to keep you busy for 100's of hours
- complex simulation modelling, this is a sim, so things like wind, slope, surface material, elevation, etc. all play a vital role and are crucial to understand
- the swing mechanic plays intuitively well with a gamepad, and is actually a really fun mechanic
- it looks very nice visually which, together with the background music, carries a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere
The worst things about The Golf Club 2:
- the biggest issue by far, is that the game makes little-to-no attempt to explain the environmental effects of wind, slope, elevation and so on. More specifically, of how the gamer is supposed to use this information and then make an effective and efficient shot based on this information. In the real world you know what a 10 mph wind feels like perhaps, but now you are in a game-world where the developers have set their on rules on how things like wind and elevation will affect you, you are playing by their rules, not that of the real world. With no explanation of how to calculate a good swing, you are left to spend dozens of hours being angry or frustrated because every swing feels so random, as the underlying logic of the mechanics at play are hidden from you. This could all have been avoided by simply adding a few more tutorials, that teaches the gamer about these things; how to adapt to the wind and elevation, and so on. In the old days you got manuals for this, but today -in this game - you get nothing.
- other accumulative issues: you can't re-start a course - instead you have to go through several menus if you want to redo a course, quality-of-life issues in general (for example, menu systems being inefficient), the lack of a Career mode, your caddie becomes highly irritating after a while - especially if you are still learning the game, not enough Easy courses, etc.
All in all, if you are looking for a golf sim and you are willing to spend your time researching Youtube for guidance of how to take environmental effects into account, this could be a game for you. You also get a large amount of content (i.e. courses), albeit no Career mode as such.