Because of their Counter-Strike brain conditioning, some of my friends are annoyed by shooting things that seem normal to me. Shooting while running seems repulsive to them. I can’t exactly relate to that, but I’ve now found the car equivalent: after 1,300 hours of Rocket League, playing a super car racing game Turbo Golf Racing (opens in new tab) for the first time felt like I was trying to tear a piece of perforated paper an inch below the perforations.
The floating ball that works so well in Rocket League is a let down in golf.
The toy-like vehicles in Turbo Golf Racing can jump and spin and fly like Rocket League cars, but everything is a little slower, you can’t dodge left or right (except by drifting and then running forward, ick), or air rolling , and it’s harder to stay in the air unless you turn your car into a glider, a clunky feature that should be saved for games that spell “cart” with a “k.” It was a struggle to shut down my Rocket League brain to stop flying off the side of the track.
I eventually got over feeling like I was in a hell designed for me by a bored Greek god, but if you don’t have a Game Pass subscription I suggest you wait and see how people with Turbo Golf Racing move forward. are going to spend $18 on the Steam Early Access version. I’m all for more games that bring together rocket cars and ball sports, but even if you can get past how it feels almost but not completely Like Rocket League, I’m not sure if Turbo Golf Racing will do for car golf what Rocket League has done for car football.
I find it hard to be completely satisfied with a game of golf where hole-in-ones seem impossible (if there’s a course you can do it I haven’t seen it) and long drives (the golf kind, not the car kind) are often not very long and not very exciting. The floating ball that works so well in Rocket League is a disappointment in golf, where I want to hold my breath as I watch a white speck pull a shallow parabola across the air—the exact parabola I predicted it would follow—only to bounce sharply in a sandbox. The thrill of victory and the pain of defeat.
You don’t get much of that experience in Turbo Golf, because you’re not scored by the number of strokes you take, but by the total time it takes to move the ball from the tee to the hole. That means a shot is only good if you can catch up quickly to hit the ball again, so I’m mostly focused on keeping my wheels on the ground and boosting full – it’s more like dribbling a football than a golf ball to beat . Maybe football was the right sport to add cars to?
An exception is when I manage to lob the ball into the hole from a distance, which feels good even if the hole is radiating the ball a little too generously into itself. One way Turbo Golf adapts Rocket League’s handling to golf is that you can easily adjust the shallowness of your stroke to get more or less air, which I like. Spin is also a factor. There are opportunities for chef’s kiss skills here, but unless you make the climax of the replay at the end of the hole, you’ll be more or less demonstrating your skills to yourself. The direct competition you get in Rocket League – really immersing someone – is not present in golf, which is usually a battle between you and the course.
Above: My first hour in Turbo Golf Racing was challenging.
When a game tries to mimic Rocket League, annoying people like me say, “It’s okay, but I wouldn’t play it for 1000 hours.”
When you play against others in Turbo Golf Racing, their balls are semi-transparent to you and you cannot interact with them. You can interact with other cars by firing rocket pickups at them – Red Shells actually – but if something is going to mess up someone’s win, it won’t be something as minor as a spinout. It’s gonna be something even less important that they do to themselves, such as once missing their ball and clumsily turning around and driving in a circle to align another shot, or kicking the ball into the edge of a tunnel. You don’t need anyone else around you to play golf.
I see the same people playing mud-made Rocket League obstacle courses starting to master Turbo Golf. There are probably some unreasonably efficient routes for ultra-skilled players to find, and I had some nice little self-alley-oop moments, like bouncing my ball off a tree to give myself a good angle for an aerial shot.
In the end, the best players can be the ones who can reliably hit the floating boost rings, which will either launch your ball a long way down the fairway or, if above the green, right into the hole. It’s kind of “goal here to win” – fun when it pays off, especially when you make a comeback after a mistake, but not quite as satisfying as a great Rocket League passing game where you and your teammates feel like a psychic bond to have.
Gosh, Rocket League really is a great game, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why it feels under-copied: When a game tries to mimic Rocket League, annoying people like me say, “Well, it’s Okaybut I wouldn’t play it for 1,000 hours.”
I could potentially become more competitive on Turbo Golf Racing as I discover more of its nuances, but if I keep playing it I think it will be mostly because I’m scared of going back to Rocket League now that I have my brain for golf. I miss a pitiful number of antennas, even if I do not have an excuse.
If you want to try it, Turbo Golf Racing is on Game Pass and Steam (opens in new tab). The developer plans to keep it in early access for a year. It already has an impressive 30 holes – it takes a lot of them to stay interesting I think – with more to come, as well as more cars, powers and modes.
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