Michael Leopold Weber, Cursed To Golf, And The Gift Of Simple Mechanics | Winter Spectacular 2022
2022 has been a bit of a weird year for me. The first 8 months I spent trying to catch up with travel that a little thing called the pandemic got in the way of, whilst the end of the year was spent moving my life across the globe back to the UK. Which sucks.
All in all, I haven’t had an awful lot of time to sink into new releases throughout the year. Anytime I have had to play games has mostly been spent on games that I am incredibly familiar with, such as Destiny 2 or Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. This is because I haven’t had the space in my brain to learn new mechanics.
Well… We’re waiting.
For example, I picked up Elden Ring on release day and absolutely loved it. I sunk a good 20 hours in over a week or so and was stunned by every aspect of that game. The sound design is gorgeous. The environments are rich and varied. The gameplay blend that painful difficulty with extreme satisfaction and snap in a way that I didn’t think was really possible. Elden Ring will most likely win every game of the year award available and that’s fully deserved. In any other year, it would be my GOTY. But then I went on holiday for a week, and when I came back I had absolutely no idea what was happening, what I was doing or even how to really play anymore. So I was done.
We as game enthusiasts are so obsessed with innovation. In graphic fidelity and in mechanics we often forget that simple is often best. That’s why Cursed To Golf really sang out to me, particularly the switch port.
Hey everybody, we’re all gonna get laid!
In Cursed To Golf, you are tasked with breaking out of golf purgatory by completing 18 holes, which are more like dungeons. You have a limited amount of shots that you can increase through smashable idols within curated holes as well as collectable Ace Cards. These Ace Cards can also do wild stuff like explode your ball into three or make it into a cute rocket ship. Essentially, Cursed To Golf is a rogue-like meets arcade golf game. It sounds really odd but works perfectly. Knocking a golf ball around within a semi-platformy level whilst using your noodle to ascertain the best way to tackle the challenge in front of you is satisfying both to the intellectual part of your brain as well as that lizard brain that “like hit ball done good brrrrrrrrrr”. Above all though, my favourite thing about Cursed To Golf is how bloody simple it is to pick up and play.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Cursed To Golf is hard as nails tough. Some of these links are absolutely brutal. But, unlike Elden Ring where on top of all the giant hammers that are trying to squash you, you have to remember intricate boss patterns, when to roll and what the timings of your weapons are and where your health potions are and then I break down crying. In Cursed To Golf, you only have three clubs. When you go to take a shot, a wonderful little graphic appears that shows you the flight trajectory of the ball, so you always know which club to use. Ace Cards have descriptions on them so you can take your time to choose the right one. You never have a time limit on your turn, only a certain amount of strokes you’re allowed to take. All in all, Cursed To Golf’s difficulty never lies in actually playing the game.
He’s a Cinderella story. A former assistant groundskeeper about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!
This meant that whilst playing Cursed To Golf on switch, I could just put my console to sleep, go about my business and then in a few days or a week or whatever, when I pick up my game I know exactly where I am and exactly what to do. I don’t have to read mountains of text to catch up with the story. I am escaping golf hell. Pretty simple. I don’t need to run through gameplay tutorials, I just need to hit the ball. It’s simple, it’s elegant, and it respects my time.
Next year, I plan to enjoy some longer games that I haven’t had the pleasure of sitting down and really enjoying. Maybe, a massive open-world RPG might be my GOTY. But we shouldn’t overlook smaller, simple games like Cursed To Golf when discussing the best games of the year. Because, behind its delightfully simple hook, are layers of texture, engaging mechanics, charming characters and, above all, the ability to enjoy all of these aspects without dedicating my life to them.
