House of Golf 2 review - The golf is good but the variety is lacking
Topics: Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, PC
Featured Image Credit: Starlight Games
Topics: Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, PC
My first impressions of House of Golf 2 were of genuine surprise. There are so many golf games nowadays that attempt to capture the sense of Crazy Golf, that it’s become quite difficult to parse whether they’re actually any good or not. Browse any digital storefront and you’ll see countless titles with the word ‘golf’ in them, often showing a windmill, or some weird loop set in a haunted house.
There’s probably nothing wrong with more of these games, but very few that I’ve tried have actually wowed me. It’s hard to wow someone with a mini-golf game, it’s just hitting a ball into a hole, right? Occasionally you’ll bounce it off a wall for a cheeky Birdie but House of Golf 2 asks you, subtly, what would happen if you ignore the rules of the course.
An example of this is found in one of the later courses, set inside a child’s bedroom. The course is littered with plenty of obstacles and hazards; detritus from the toybox is scattered across a tabletop, and there’s a pathway between books and toy trains. However, from the tee, there’s a small pencil eraser with an upward slope. Beyond that, the chasm of the floor where your ball will go out of bounds. In the distance, the hole sits, tantalising.
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After several courses and plenty of practice, I knew that if I aimed the ball at the eraser and put a lot of force behind my shot, it would arc over that gap and land either in the hole or right next to it.
Thankfully you can reset your shot if it goes wild, though these are limited to nine attempts over nine holes. Use them all up early, and you’ve got nothing to save you on later holes. I line up the camera with the flag in the distance, push the power bar almost to the maximum output, and hit the ball. With a little luck, the ball lands gently on the green with a deft bounce, ready for me to knock it in for an Eagle.
That made me give a soft ‘wow.’ Other things that made me say ‘oh wow’ in varying degrees of enthusiasm - using paint splodges to slow the ball down and angle up for the green, the D20 golf ball, making a very long shot that zoomed between two moving toy trucks, hitting a full-force shot off the tee and threading the ball through a small gap, bouncing the ball off a spanner on a shelf that took the ball two shelves lower and onto the green. These anecdotes mean nothing to you, but they wowed me.
It took a while to get this kind of trick shot confidence. The opening courses, all of which are scored on the number of strokes before rewarding you with a bronze, silver, or gold trophy, are pretty simple. I learned the way the ball bounced and rolled, managed the slightly awkward camera aiming, and got the chance to practice how the power translated to the ball.
There’s an ability to finely aim the shot, along with the chance to replay them if things go wrong, as mentioned previously, but beyond that, this is a simple affair. None of that backspin nonsense, or turbo shots, just get it into the hole in as few shots as possible.
The courses are themed, though the variety is thin on the ground. You’ll go through the child’s bedroom, a workshop filled with tools, and a kitchen with tables covered in ingredients and utensils. They’re not bland, but by no means are they exciting either. They do however look really swish, with plenty of reflections, high details, and nicely rendered surfaces. There’s plenty of humour in the designs too, usually through the naming of products or the added features of things like pinball bumpers that make the shot a bit of a farce.
House of Golf 2 is arcadey enough and you can play with several people taking turns to shoot the ball, however, if you’ve already played a hole, chances are you’re spanking whoever you play against as you’ll know all the tricks. One-way portals, for example, are found on courses that either take you to further sections or allow the collection of medals that unlock new ball designs.
When I played against my best friend she called me a “dirty cheater” because instead of taking the route she chose, I played my ball off the tee at full power, flying over a void, bouncing off a cardboard box, and rolling onto the green for an easy putt.
Because House of Golf 2 does things well when forcing you to think outside the course, you begin to take chances that pay off with great scores and huge hits of dopamine. Coming under par on every hole feels like the second coming of Tiger Woods. You might think the ability to retake shots is cheating, but you’ll need them as you learn the courses. Eventually, you’ll know the shots so well you can hit them in your sleep, which doesn’t rob you of any excitement, but it does remove the replayability of the game.
Once I got to the end and completed each course with a gold trophy, I could try my hand at the online tournaments which pit you against the scores and shots of other players, but with only some medals on the line, I didn’t dabble for long. Sure, the ball designs are lush and often neatly designed, but I didn’t care enough.
House of Golf 2 then, is a mighty fine way to play Crazy Golf. It looks lush, it plays smoothly and it gives you a chance to feel like a golfing god. The dopamine rush soon ends after about 8-10 hours, unless you’ve got loads of mates to play with, but you’ll likely thrash them unless you’re drunk. I had a good time and I’ll play again if new courses are added, but after that handful of hours, I’d had my fill.
Pros: Gorgeous visuals, the rush of trick shots, plenty of multiplayer options
Cons: Lack of variety outside of the golf balls, loses its charm after a while, limited in replayability
For fans of: Golf With Friends, Any PGA golf game, real life Crazy Golf
House of Golf 2 is available now on PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox Series S|X and PC. Review code was provided by the publisher. Find a complete guide to GAMINGbible's review scores here.