Nintendo has finally fixed golf, a sport that has been terrible for centuries
Mario Golf: Super Rush improves the classic golf formula by finally letting you race your opponents
Games Features Nintendo
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Golf isn’t necessarily a bad game, as evidenced by the fact that it’s been a popular hobby all around the world for generations. But it is a stupid game, one that is only redeemed through the use of golf carts, or by stripping away all of the boring stuff where nothing happens and replacing it with windmills and waterfalls and pirates. Until now! Last week, Nintendo released Mario Golf: Super Rush, the latest entry in its ongoing series of Super Mario-themed sports games, and the developers at Camelot seem to have finally fixed mankind’s most boring sport.
This is all thanks to a couple of twists to the regular golf formula: One is that Super Rush allows you and your co-golfers to all play at the same time, playing together in split-screen without needing to patiently wait your turn, or quietly sitting back while your opponents take putt after putt after putt. The other innovation, and one that truly deserves to be integrated into “real” golf, is called Speed Golf. In that mode, it’s all about who gets to the hole first, and also you have to physically run to your ball rather than being automatically transported to it like in most other golf video games. You can even push your opponents out of the way or try to beat them to special powerups while running, and each character has special abilities that can known opponents or their balls out of the way, giving everything that Mario Kart-style edge of constantly being a second away from complete disaster.
It all could probably stand to be just a little wackier—even though the overtly Mario Kart-y battle mode is too hectic and complex to be anything but a chaotic mess—but the game in general is a testament to how good Nintendo can be at injecting some Mario personality into these sports games. This is still recognizably golf, even with some of the wackier options turned on, it’s just a superior version of golf that makes every other version of golf look… you know, stupid.
Also, Super Rush introduces a fun new line of Mushroom Kingdom fashion, with most of the characters putting on garish golf outfits for their time hitting the links. Bowser has a terrible red and black Guy Fieri number, Peach has a nice golf skirt, and even Toad gets in on the fun by putting a little golfer hat on top of his regular mushroom hat. Oh, wait, Nintendo said it’s actually part of his head and not a hat a few years ago, so his Mario Golf: Super Rush hat is probably just a canonical in-universe confirmation of that fact, which is less funny than it being a hat on a hat. (That one’s for you screenwriters out there.)
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I’m not here to defend golf, but you can hardly call it the most boring sport when cricket exists.
Or baseball.
I always feel as though golf is accidentally boring, while cricket is intentionally so.
Game mechanics sound cool, I will ignore the bait and now say how amazing it is that for sport games there is always a game that establish the formula and subsequent games barely change it. I am thinking of the tennis games which in 1984 had three different offerings in the Spectrum (Match Point), NES (Tennis) and C64 (On Court Tennis) which were almost the same and where the mechanics almost did not change since then, on Golf games that haven’t changed that much since Access released Links, or football (soccer for the heretics) which, well, also haven’t changed that much apart from some polish in Sensible Soccer. Right?
Well the Amiga version of Sensible World of Soccer remains the pinnacle of football games so if it ain’t broke..
I mean, 100 Ft. Robot Golf did it first.Not much new for me, a lot of Fire Pro Wrestling and a lot of Final Fantasy XIV. Regarding the former I ran a few cards, and have been filling out some rosters with some player-made CAWs. One complaint I have is that ever since custom parts and moves were introduced, every new CAW has a bunch of custom stuff you have to subscribe to in order to work. The graphics in this game are pretty simplified so I don’t see why everyone has to meticulously recreate people’s faces (especially since the default faces in the game are almost all lookalikes of famous wrestlers.) At least they make it easy enough to find the extras you need, and I suppose some of the custom parts and moves will come in handy.In FFXIV I’m still working through A Realm Reborn, I did some boss refights which were fine, I believe the section I’m in is called Heart of Ice, the story’s not bad but it is very talky. I do like Moenbryda quite a lot. Game’s just a very chill place.
I’m currently in what everyone considers the weakest spot of Final Fantasy XIV, the quests between the end of A Realm Reborn and the start of Heavensward, and I’m missing the talkiness. Right now, it’s basically pure grinding and redoing the dungeons until I can get myself considerably higher than the Level 50 these quests claim to be aimed at. Given the frequency in which I’ve been dying doing these “story quests” and the paucity of the narrative within, it’s really hard to keep going, even though everyone is telling my Heavensward is worth it.
Everything after this slog is excellent. If it makes you more motivated, you are actually playing the “pleasant stroll” version of the pre-Heavensward version, as they’ve cut it down significantly last year. It’s still long, so let that sink in.Also, nothing like this ever happens again. The pre/post expansion periods from Heavensward onwards are much snappier and they sometimes feature some of the best writing in the game.
I’ve heard that, but that doesn’t mitigate my frequently dying both on game and of boredom trying to get back to the good stuff.
I’m very confused you’re dying because you really shouldn’t be. Are you doing your job quests on the regular? Did you buy stuff from Rowena’s? Because those are strong enough you’ll be coasting on them to about the middle of Heavensward.
This is my character (I’m on the Free Trial mode for now because I’m a cheap bastard)With this equipmentAnd the quest I’m struggling on is called The Gift. It’s here but Kinja eats links: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The_Gifted
Specifically the “Approach the white-robed Ascian (0/4) part, since said white-robe is surrounded by four high-level Ascian bodyguards who are consistently kicking my ass.
Yeah you must not have gotten any ilvl130 equipment with your Tomestones of Poetics yet.
I know you’ve heard it a lot, but it bears repeating because of just how much of a slog the part you’re on is. It is worth it. You really shouldn’t be dying at the story quests though. They’re all designed to be pretty easy, although some are just buggy because they’re old. What class are you playing when you’re soloing stuff?Tip, just in case you aren’t, play around with multiple classes to spread some of that XP around and to keep you from being so ridiculously over-leveled for the content you’re in. Its not hard to basically be past an expansion’s level cap while you’re playing it. If nothing else, get some of the expansion jobs. Samurai and Red Mage start at 50, so you’re pretty much good to go. If you’ve hit 60 already then you can get Gunbreaker and Dancer, both of which are very fun. Sadly, if you have your eyes set on Machinist, Dark Knight or Astrologian you’ll have to get in to Heavensward then start at level 30. Kind of annoying, but hey, its easy to level in FF14.
Thanks in part to the wallet destroyer that is the Steam summer sale, I got quite a bit of gaming in this week despite only buying four games in said sale, and playing three of them. The purchase I didn’t play was Portal 2 which I mostly bought to celebrate finally finishing the original Portal last week.Two of the Steam summer sale games I did play, albeit very briefly could be classified as a “stories & service industry” duo, despite being technically unrelated to each other.The first of these VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender Action is more of a visual novel with an attached drink mixing minigame than an actual game, and is set in what is clearly a pretty horrific dystopian place known as Glitch City. The story seems interesting, but I haven’t gotten very far, simply because there’s a distinct dearth of opportunities to save the game (only twice per in-game day) so I can’t take my usual approach to this genre and just play a quick 15 minute chunk when I have a moment.
That approach does work for the second of these types of games:Coffee Talk which lets you save any time. In this one you’re a barista in Seattle, and your customers include some fantasy races in addition to humans. So far I’ve encountered Succubi, Elves, Werewolves, and Vampires all with their own problems and custom coffee orders.
But the Steam summer sale purchase I’ve spent the most time with this past week was We. The Revolution where I’m deep into Act 1. So deep in fact that I’m presiding over the trial of this gentleman:Citizen Capet, better known as King Louis XVI. As you can see from the screenshot, the trial didn’t end well for the former King. Of course it didn’t begin well for the prosecution, since this is Citizen Capet’s second trial. There’s a strong hint of how the first trial ended in the screenshot below:
So, naturally, the people of Paris were more than a little nervous as the ex-Monarch went to the guillotine. Which is where my oratorical skills came in:
Of course Louis did still end that day dead, and well over a foot shorter tan when he started it. There were other trials to deal with as well, and many of them included copious case notes of a similar nature to these:
To be honest, I’m still not sure I “get” this game, but it has the feel of one that’ll come together more on a second playthrough.
Other games that have occupied my time include this one which I got as part of the itch.io bundle for racial justice around the time of the George Floyd protests:It’s weirdly difficult to get actual screenshots of this, but One Night Stand is a very quick playthrough with a few different story choices which all stem from you waking up hungover, naked, and amnesiac in a strange woman’s bed. So far I’ve unlocked three different endings, but I think there’s at least ten more to find.
I also went back to my comfort food of gaming:Good old Elite Dangerous. My plan was to visit Felicity Farseer now that I have a GPU that can handle planetary landings but I keep finding unexplored locations in the systems I jumping to and getting distracted by those, so haven’t yet made it to Felicity. I think I’m one more jump away from her system.
And to take this post from long to ridiculously long, here’s the game that’s occupied by far the most of my gaming time this week, just as it has for the last few, Dragon Age II and spoilers will be bountiful.We begin just outside the Chantry in Hightown. As has been the case for the majority of Act 1, my party is my male archer rogue Hawke, Bethany, Aveline, and Varric.Varric and Hawke had heard a rumor about a woman searching for a missing Templar in the area. The missing Templar is named Keran and according to his sister, Macha, he went missing not long after joining the Templars. She suspects malfeasance from Knight-Commander Meredith. After a brief chat with some newbie Templars in the Gallows, one of whom tells us about another recently vanished recruit. Though according to another of the newbies, said vanished recruit has unvanished himself and set up camp outside of town to clear his head.We head off to the camp and find said unvanished recruit. He’s being browbeaten, and possibly actually beaten by a Templar Knight-Captain, who seems a rather unpleasant fellow. Though it happens that our recruit is even more unpleasant as he turns out to be a shade, accompanied by a couple of abominations. These darkspawn are quickly dispatched, for which the Knight Captain, Cullen, is grateful. He tells us that the only ritual that new recruits to the Templars must go through is a vigil, where the biggest danger is falling asleep out of sheer boredom. Also, the Knight-Captain had no idea about the recruit’s possession and was just trying to intimidate him via the medium of swords.That doesn’t explain the mysterious disappearances, though. In addition to being Templars and vanishing without trace it seems the newish recruits had both been customers of the Blooming Rose brothel, but the Knight-Captain was apparently too shy to do any proper questioning of the ladies and gentlemen of negotiable affection.We have no such qualms and Hawke is soon visiting the pride of the red lantern district. Our new Templars were both recently in the company of someone world’s-oldest-professionally known as “The Exotic Wonder From The East.” The party goes to question said Exotic Wonder, only for Varric and Hawke to be hypnotized by her blood mage powers. Fortunately, Bethany can use her non-blood mage powers to break the trance before Hawke pulls a Dibbler and Cuts His Own Throat without a sausage inna bun in sight.
After a bit of questioning, the Exotic Wonder
reveals a Tevinter plot to undermine the Templars by having another apostate
blood mage fanatic infect new recruits with demons, thus sewing discord and
mistrust in the Templar ranks. She gives us the location where these mages are
hiding, and is rewarded with a swift death, since the mesmerism ability makes
her far too dangerous to leave alive. We now have a hideout to raid and do.
Though we face considerable demonic, darkspawn, and undead resistance. Keran,
our missing Templar is there, imprisoned in a magical whirlwind cage thingy. We
also find the bat-guano insane blood mage fanatic who is using Keran as a
battery to power her demon summoning, which she demonstrates by bringing forth
a desire demon. Despite the demon embodying one of U2’s better singles, the
party defeats the demon, as well as the accompanying mages and abominations.
Hawke kills the leading fanatical blood mage, and we free Keran from his
battery farm. Keran is taken to the Templar Knight-Captain. We reassure the
Captain that Keran hasn’t been possessed, but he’s rather skeptical. Though
after a bit of #NotAllMages conversation, Keran is readmitted to the Templars,
though under constant vigilance. That done, we drop in on someone with no love
lost for the Templars, Anders, for a little chat. It turns out to be a
surprisingly flirty conversation, the upshot of which is that Anders and Karl,
the mage he killed while being a spirit of vengeance were an item. It seems
Anders kind of wants Hawke to be his rebound, but he’s quickly rebuffed. We also re-hire a bunch of workers for the Bone
Pit mines, since we now own a stake in those mines after clearing the dragon
out. There’s even a small chance of a raise.
We also help a terrible husband with an even
worse French accent try to find his wife, whom he clearly doesn’t love. Apparently,
a horny elf dude in the Blooming Rose did love her and is concerned about that
disappearance. Also concerned about the disappearance is a Templar
investigator, horny status unknown. The investigator has linked said
disappearance to that of multiple women in similar circumstances. Following his
leads to a foundry, we find another desire demon and their companions. After a
fight we also find our missing woman. Well, decaying parts of her at any road
since she’s most sincerely dead. We break the news to investigator, lousy
husband, and horny elf dude in that order. We also ended up helping an underage smuggler
recover his contraband and then escape from Athenril’s servitude. Athenril was
less than thrilled at this course of action. That done, we help out a dwarf
noble who’s been targeting by the local thieves guild since Bhelen became king
of Orzammar. Since the Warden I played back in Origins was instrumental
in that, a guilt trip might have been involved.The party is hired by a Kirkwall magistrate to
track down an escaped criminal and bring them in unharmed. We head to said
criminal’s last known location and find a disagreement in approach. A guardsman
wants to keep with the magistrate’s “unharmed” edict and thinks
there’s a chance said criminal has been eaten by native creatures. Meanwhile a
Dalish elf wants the criminal dead on the not unreasonable basis that said
criminal is a serial killer of elven children.We enter the cave system the criminal has been
hiding out in and discover that it’s positively infested with giant spiders,
some of which are venomous, and all of which die easily to Bethany’s cold
spells. Eventually, we find the criminal, who turns out to be the magistrate’s
son. He blames his killings on demons, but not in the literal sense hitherto
employed, but in the Ralph Wiggum “the voices tell me to burn things”
sense. He also requests the sweet release of death since he doesn’t really like
the voices, nor the trail of dead elves. Hawke applies a dagger directly to the
heart and the criminal has ceased to be. Leaving the cave system, our Dalish
elf is delighting in death, and the guard rather less so. The magistrate is
even less impressed, barely acknowledging the party and swearing revenge.Next up, time to help recover more legitimately
transported merchandise from Lowtown Kirkwall. After dealing with some street
thugs, we find the cargo in the abandoned house district, where Zord fights would
happen if Power Rangers existed in Thedas. What does exist in Thedas are
Tevinter Hunters and a few slavers. Though after an attempted ambush of the
party, Hawke and company make sure they don’t exist in a strictly alive way
anymore. This pleases a weirdly tattooed possibly elven twink named Fenris.
Since he was apparently the quarry the Tevinter people were after.Fenris is an escaped slave who, entirely
reasonably has an enormous hate-boner for his former master and wants our help
breaking into that former master’s mansion so that he might have his revenge.
We agree to help, though Varric sits this one out, as Fenris has joined the
party. We clear out the mansion of all kinds of magical summons, mostly rage
demons and abominations. With that done, a brief conversation with Fenris
ensues that reveals he has a fanatical hatred of mages, though he didn’t seem
to mind Bethany helping him out scant minutes before. Despite that, Fenris is
now a possible party member. He’s also taken the mansion we cleared out as his
own residence.
After a brief chat with Fenris, Hawke confirms
that he doesn’t particularly want to go back to Ferelden, since Lothering is
gone and Kirkwall feels like home. We also find out that Fenris has been on the
run for a few years now, and there’s a smattering of a flirty exchange between
the two of them. Next, the party heads to Lowtown and the
previously revealed hideout of the Sharps Highwaymen. The party starts and ends
a gang war in one night by wiping out the entirety of the Highwaymen, including
the leadership. Taking their money and their life before they can attempt to
stand and deliver. A quick gander at a poster in Hightown reveals
that city authorities have a rash of missing son problems, since after the
magistrate, the viscount wants his son rescued from the Wounded Coast. Off we
trot and find that there’s another mercenary group, the Winters doing the same
thing. They’ve already recovered the son but have managed to anger him by
killing a presumed innocent Qunari whom he was friends with. I pull a Navi and
tell the mercenaries to “hey, listen” to the son. They apparently
have bad 64-bit flashbacks and draw a knife on me, so we take down the entire
mercenary band since there’s no kill quite like overkill. Anyway, I reunite the
son with the father, and they have a spirited argument about the treatment of
the Qunari. I tell the father that the son is within his rights to have
questions, and then in time-honored fashion, bugger off down the pub.Where I run into a slightly drunk gentleman, who
claims to be both a Prince of Ferelden, and a Grey Warden. After seeing
Alistair (for it is he) in his cups, Hawke’s gone right off his drink. He
leaves the pub, and the party leaves town to head back to the Wounded Coast.
This is mostly because we’d found some Grey Warden letters on one of the
mercenary corpses earlier and needed to see if they had stolen any more
correspondence. They hadn’t really, though there was some kind of experimental
elixir from the old mage Avernus, who the Warden-Commander had left alive
during Origins: Awakening. Finding that out involved killing a whole
bunch of giant spiders, a handful of mercenaries, and an unfortunate mabari
warhound. With the correspondence delivered to a dead drop in Lowtown like a
proper spy movie thing, Hawke heads back to Uncle Gamlen’s house, where he has
a thank you note from the Wardens.
I gather my party before venturing forth in this
case “forth” being towards the Wounded Coast yet again, since we had
rescued a dodgy dwarven merchant from an ambush at Dead Man’s Pass. He claims
to have made a deal with the Qunari Arishok to get him some sweet, sweet
gunpowder bombs (which were a lot of fun to use back in Awakening) in
exchange for eliminating a band of Qunari rebels or Tal-Vashoth. The merchant
wants to hire the party to kill them, and we need the coin, so Hawke readily
agrees.At the Wounded Coast we’re intercepted by a
Qunari who is apparently an outcast from the Tal-Vashoth. A rebel rebel if you
will. His face is a mess, but he doesn’t appear to have torn his dress. He
warns us of the oncoming ambush and prepared positions. Forewarned is forearmed
and since we’re also armed in the “bristling with weapons” sense, we
charge into the ambush, and promptly eradicate a few Tal-Vashoth. We then enter
the cavern system they’ve been using as a lair and cleanse it of the
Tal-Vashoth presence, including the rebel leader.We return to the dodgy dwarf at the docks, and he
receives an audience with the Qunari leader, who Arishok me all night long. Our
dwarf merchant neglected to mention that he hadn’t actually negotiated a deal
with the Arishok and was working on an assumption. Which means we don’t get any
filthy lucre from that meeting, though the Arishok does begrudgingly accept
that the dodgy dwarf owes us future profits for our pacification of the Qunari
rebels.We hear a rumor that someone at the Chantry is
offering good money for a mission, and since our dwarf stiffed us on the last
tab, we seek them out. That someone is Sister Petrice of the Chantry. She’s
very clearly about to get mugged in a dark alley, so we rescue her from that,
since it’s real hard to get paid when your creditor is a corpse. It feels a
little fishy, but she takes us to a safe house where we meet Ketojan, another
Qunari who is collared and leashed and seems only capable of growling. Petrice
wants us to escort this least-conspicuous-figure ever out of town without being
caught. It sure looks like we’ll be going underground for this one. Specifically,
the Undercity beneath Kirkwall. It’s mostly crawling with extra-large
arachnids, who burn nicely in Bethany’s firestorms. There are also a few thugs
down there, one of whom annoys Ketojan so much that the collared Qunari
unleashes magic against that thug. Also unleashed against the thug and his
cohorts: arrows, crossbow bolts and a big sword. This clears them out of the
Undercity and allows us to escort Ketojan to the Vimmark Mountains and a Qunari
encampment.
These Qunari call Ketojan something else that
apparently means dangerous thing, since he’s a mage and may have been touched
by demons. Ketojan asks to be surrendered to these Qunari. I do so, and they
free him from his bonds. Ketojan tells the Qunari that Hawke is worthy of
following and then is ceremonially executed. Also, being worthy of following
means I’m also worthy of a ceremonial death since I’ve been exposed to
unsupervised magery. A battle ensues, and the upshot is a whole lot of dead
Qunari. With everything done, we return to Sister Petrice, and discover that
she was trying to foment war between the Chantry and the Qunari using our party
as her pawns. Hawke expresses his displeasure at this development but doesn’t
do anything about it.What we do is read yet another letter at Uncle
Gamlen’s house. It’s from a dwarf named Dougal, and he wants to pay for the
party’s share of costs for the Deep Roads expedition in exchange for a share of
the profits. He apparently can’t pay the dwarf leading the expedition, Varric’s
brother Bartrand, directly since they had one of those falling outs that are
only resolved via fistfights. Despite already having the money, I go against my
better judgement and take Dougal up on his “generous” offer.
With the money paid, and the maps recovered, Hawke
can’t put it off any longer. It’s time to go rolling in the Deep Roads. Before
that happens though, Mama Hawke shows up and requests that I don’t take Bethany
down there with me. Bethany insists that she’s a big girl and can absolutely
handle herself. Hawke defers to his sister’s wishes and the party for the
expedition to the Deep Roads is our standard Act 1 quartet of Hawke, Bethany,
Aveline, and Varric, the latter of whom I had no choice about.Thanks to a cave in, the expedition is off to a
bad start, since we can’t go the way that was planned. The party goes down a
side passage, rescuing Bodahn and Sandal, who I think were enchantment dealers
back in Origins. Sandal appears to have somehow frozen an ogre in a
non-enchanting fashion. Of course, to pull off this rescue, we must kill a
metric ton of darkspawn, as well as more really freaking big spiders. A little
bit later, one of the darkspawn we get to confront is an ogre. Since one of
these creatures killed their brother, Bethany and Hawke go HAM on this one and
quickly kill it.Of course, our difficulties are just starting,
since we have a bunch of dragonlings and an actual (pretty dang strong) dragon
to deal with. Once these magnificent lizards are slain, we find
our way through the Deep Roads to the raid target. We return to Bartrand and
tell him as much. He seems happy about it. Once we get through, we find a
hitherto undiscovered dwarven Thaig. Hawke and the party begin to explore it
and find an idol made of pure lyrium. Apparently, it must have a great deal of
value, since Bartrand takes it and then betrays the party by trapping them in
the Thaig so he doesn’t have to share the profits of this expedition.
We have to try and find another way out, so the
party starts further exploration of the Thaig. This means that we find a few
things, notably a stone golem and a bunch of shades. These are eventually taken
out. We then discover a whole new type of enemy, some rocky things called
profanes. Luckily the profane are mostly pro-slain, but there are a lot of
them. We’re approached by what looks like a profane abomination of a hunger
demon, who knows where a key, and therefore a way out of this place is. All we
have got to do is switch from killing profanes to killing a crypt guardian.
Since Hawke would really, really like not to be trapped for eternity in the
Deep Roads, he does the foolish thing and takes the demon’s deal.The crypt guardian turns out to be an ancient
rock wraith and by far the toughest fight we’ve faced so far. After consuming
an ungodly amount of health potions and having to use a couple of injury kits,
the guardian is slain, and we have our key. The rocky demon shows up and
immediately tries to break the deal, despite us only wanting the key and not
the vast amounts of other treasure in the vault. The demon, not being capable
of listening to reason promptly attacks us. We kill it and the few minions it
summoned with relative ease and escape from the Deep Roads back to the initial
camp site. Unfortunately, the darkspawn aren’t quite done with us yet, since
Bethany’s only gone and caught herself some taint from the Blight, which means
that Hawke euthanizes his sister. He’s an only child now. Act 1 of Dragon
Age II and my playthrough so far ends much as it began with Mama Hawke
lamenting the loss of her child.
VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender ActionCan you serve another fucking Kirin, and keep them coming?
Envious that you haven’t played Portal 2 yet. It definitely ranks among my favorite game experiences. Unfortunately, we only get one chance to experience a game for the first time.
Yeah. I was super-proud of myself for figuring out every puzzle in Portal 2 on my own (I needed help with a few of the later puzzles in the original Portal). Even though it’s twice as long as the original, I still went through it in a single day.
Don’t remember if I burned through it in the first sitting. But it was maybe 2nd or 3rd evening at most. Such a great sequel; really built on the orignal’s foundation.
The first Portal has a lot of reflex-based rooms, especially towards the end – I wouldn’t really call them puzzles, since they don’t require much figurin’ out. It’s all about being able to time a second portal shot of the correct colour while you’re still falling, or before a turret locks on to you. Things of that ilk.I did kinda miss them in the second Portal, but I think having only pure puzzles in the second one is a worthy trade-off.
I bought a copy of Portal 2 years ago, long after it came out, because I’d loved the original but never got around to the sequel. Still haven’t – maybe now’s the time, although I’ll have to dig out my USB DVD drive, since my system builds no longer include optical drives.
My latest build doesn’t have a bay for an optical drive. So I bought an external used it mostly to set up the system. Didn’t plug it in for over a year, now my system doesn’t recognize that it’s connected when I try to hook it up.
That’s annoying. So far the external one I bought has worked great on the few occasions I’ve needed it, and the space/weight savings on the two system builds I’ve left them out of has been wonderful. Never again will I have an internal optical drive!
I paid less than $2 on Steam, so that might sway e inconvenience of digging up a drive.
Not true! One of the benefits of getting older is that you forget a lot of stuff. I have a friend I get together with every 3-4 years and we play through Portal 2 multiplayer again for the first time. We can’t remember any of the solutions to the puzzles.
I’m pretty sure Coffee Talk is also on PS4 and I played a demo for it. Seemed pretty fun. I wouldn’t mind playing more of it and seeing other races as patrons. Just not sure what the overall story is.
Don’t sleep on the co-op levels, which continue the story and are excellent in their own right.
Is this a post or another article? 🙂
Eh, i got myself a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2.It was on sale a year ago, but i choose to buy Cyberpunk instead. Didn’t have that much of regret. Main mission is pretty good, main story is pretty decent, character is interesting, weaponry is pretty fun didn’t encounter that much of bug.But yeah, the world is a bit hollow which at best this is ps2 level of open world game in terms of interactivity. Enemy is fairly dumb and samey making all that weapon and skills customization moot, bystander npc will be scared to death if you drop a object, “gangs” is nothing more than overworld enemy like in ps1 game.
and when you manage to encounter campaign misdesign like a following mission but i got side tracked with shinies and ended left behind and locked in burning building by the npc that i suppose to follow… yeah. It reminds me of playing bethesda game, which you need to have guide ready to deal with bugs you might encounter.—-Red Dead Redemption?Its pretty fun, the story is as good or gonna be even better. Combat is so far more fun as the npc is better placed or used. and the world is damn beautiful and not overly sexed like in cyberpunk. Also varied things to do other than go here, kill this dude.
WELCOME TO SKYRIM, LAND OF TINNITUS. HELLO, EVERYONE. YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY I’M YELLING. THAT’S A VERY GOOD QUESTION. IT’S BECAUSE, A DECADE SINCE I LAST PLAYED IT, I’VE DECIDED TO GIVE THE ELDER SCROLLS: SKYRIM ANOTHER CRACK, AND HOOO BOY, I REMEMBER WHY IT WAS SUCH A PAIN – A LITERAL PAIN – TO PLAY IT LAST.AND THAT’S BECAUSE THE AUDIO ON THIS THING IS THE WORST-MIXED SOUND I’VE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO ASSAULT MY EARHOLES WITH. FUCK ME DRUNK AND SIDEWAYS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’VE DONE, BUT NOTHING KICKS OFF THE TINNITUS LIKE THIS FUCKING GAME’S AUDIO MIX.AND THAT’S COMING FROM A FORMER HEAVY METAL PHOTOGRAPHER WHO USE TO SHOOT GIGS WITH A 50MM LENS, SIX FEET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING LINE ARRAYS. NOTHING TRIGGERS MY TINNITUS LIKE THIS GAME.FROM THE CONSTANT LOW FREQUENCY HUM MARIO CRESPA DECIDED TO LAYER UNDER EVERYTHING THAT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE BRIAN CRANSTON’S CHARACTER IN THAT X-FILES EPISODE WHERE SCULLY WAS GONNA RAM A LARGE-BORE NEEDLE INTO HIS HEAD, TO THE WEIRD PSYCHOACOUSTIC SHENANIGANS THAT FATIGUE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU IN THE MIDS AND TREBLE. OH, AND LET’S NOT FORGET: JUST AS THE 2000S WERE THE DECADE OF EVERY BASTARD – ESPECIALLY BETHESDA – MESSING AROUND WITH HDR IN GRAPHICS, THE 2010S WERE THE DECADE OF GAMES MESSING AROUND WITH HDR IN AUDIO. THERE’S THE WEIRDLY-MIXED DECAY AND DROP OFF RATES, WHERE YOU CAN’T HEAR PEOPLE UP CLOSE, YET THE VOLUME OF THEIR VOICES DON’T DROP OFF IN A REALISTIC MANNER FOR DOZES OF YARDS. THEN THERE’S THE OVERWHELMING AMBIENT AFFECTS THAT CEASELESS FLOAT OVER EVERYTHING. MY ONLY CONSOLATION IS THAT THIS IT CRASHES EVERY HALF HOUR, SO I DON’T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH IT FOR LONG.
You know who likes shouting?! SHEOGORATH! DAEDRIC PRINCE OF MADNESS!Charmed.
Honestly, a shitload of mods helped (because Bethesda) – most of which are sound replacements.First of all, I’m actually playing Special Edition on PC, and oh boy, yup: Bethesda fucked with the sound in a special way straight up.The original game used uncompressed .wav files for the PC (and presumably all other platforms) when released. For the SSE on PC and Xbox, because it’s digital-only, and probably because MS paid them to, they went with MS’s proprietary compressed .xwm format. The differences are quiet noticeable, with not just data compression, but also audio compression, removing a lot of nuance:It’s like a 96kbps MP3 you pulled off of Napster back in the day. Notice how they randomly seem to duck and boost the SSE sample (the one at the end of that soundcloud) to try to make it seem more “dynamic”. Fortunately, Sony don’t play with that bullshit, what with bein’ an audio and music company as well, (and, you know, they wouldn’t exactly go out of their way to licence an Xbox format for their hardware…), and the PS4 version still has uncompressed audio, which some clever clogs was able to rip and upload as the Unofficial High Definition Audio Project. Then it was a case of loading up Lucidity Sound FX, which takes a lot of those sounds and replaces them anyway – but, crucially, has them mixed by someone who’s cleaned the wax out of their ears inside of this millennium. After that, I fixed most of the mixing issues with Audio Overhaul for Skyrim SE, which also replaces a lot of audio. It also tweaks with the reverb a bit – too much, in my opinion, but it is what it is. Finally, since there’s still masses of bass boost and droning along with Audio Overhaul’s reverb shenanigans, I’ve taken to using the True 3D Sound For Headphones mod to get decent HRTF surround, without the added bass and reverb of the standard Dolby/DTS solutions (plus, True 3D works directly out of Xaudio’s 3D buffer). All that just to get decent audio. You know who likes shouting?! SHEOGORATH! DAEDRIC PRINCE OF MADNESS!One of the best things about Oblivion – a return to some true weirdness of the Morrowind days, unlike the boring “Did anyone else watch Lord Of The Rings, eh?” Oblivion. I’m kinda disappointed that TESVI appears to be set in Hammerfell, when the weirdness of Valenwood, Elsweyr (jesus fucking christ, that name), and The Black Marsh are available.
As usual, this weekend is mostly for RPGs. Tonight I run a DnD session, mostly to test out some homebrew mechanics for a planned campaign. It’ll be Dark Souls themed, and trying to balance a game where players/enemies can respawn and XP doubles as currency is proving an interesting puzzle.On Sunday meanwhile, I’m participating in an ongoing Pathfinder game, wherein the party has finally learned caution and stopped blundering to their deaths. Numbers feel higher in PF than in DnD, so that individual attacks hitting or missing seem to have more of an impact than strategy and teamwork; but that might just be salt on my part.I finally got round to TABS’s release update yesterday, so I’ll probably carry on with the good/evil campaigns when I can carve out an evening. That probably won’t be over the weekend though.
As someone who hasn’t been able to play real golf (because of a series of injuries) since February and is really upset about it, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: go fuck yourself.Game looks fun, though.
I can appreciate your point of view if it’s your thing, and you are unable to enjoy it, then that’s sad. But the sheer acreage that golf courses take up, that could be put to more socially beneficial use, limits my sympathy a little. I’m also slightly biased having done some work for a couple of golf clubs, which involved dealing with committee members who were, without doubt, the most bigoted people I’ve ever had to deal with.
This is one of the weirdest criticisms I’ve ever seen. The sheer acreage could be put to more socially beneficial use? That could be said of literally any leisure activity, if one takes the view that leisure activities are inherently not socially beneficial uses. Should we turn the Louvre into modestly-priced housing?
I think the water usage required is a more valid criticism, particularly in drought-prone places like California or South Africa.
Should we turn the Louvre into modestly-priced housing?There aren’t half a dozen Louvres in your average city, and there’s a lot more cultural value packed into that space than there is in a golf course. Also, the Louvre isn’t primarily restricted to the wealthy upper class the way most golf courses are, so whatever social benefit it provides is a benefit for the entire community, not just the wealthy elite.We also aren’t building Louvres in places where they aren’t sustainable and use up important and dwindling natural resources to prop them up (see: Arizona, a desert that is still, inexplicably, full of fucking golf courses).Compare the amount of land and resources required for a golf course to the actual portion of the population that ever sees any benefit from it, and golf courses are basically the prime example of extravagantly wasting resources for the benefit of the 1%.Now, if we were just talking about one or two municipal courses per city, with greens fees your average citizen could afford, then it would be different. But that’s not how golf actually works 95% of the time.
Uh, golf courses are vanishing, not being built. Maybe look at Strip Mall, USA
Uh, golf courses are vanishing, not being built.That’s an objectively good thing that doesn’t actually bear much relevance to any of my points about the impact of existing golf courses. Maybe look at Strip Mall, USAThis is a separate, but also valid issue that also doesn’t bear much relevance to any of my points, and comes across as “whataboutism.” The wealthy actually pay their own money to belong to said golf courses. That money goes to maintaining these courses. Your money does not, so rest easy.Again, this doesn’t address any of my points, either. It’s like you aren’t even trying to. The wealthy could spend their money buying up land and salting it according to your logic, and we’d all just “rest easy” because it’s their money, and who gives a fuck about the actual social and economic impact they have on their communities, amirite? Just because it’s their money doesn’t mean we have to think well of them for how they spend it, particularly when the money they spend is often used on resources that could be better used elsewhere (see: golf courses in Arizona and other drought-prone states using precious water to keep their grass growing).
This is the part where I tell you that:a) I sold a product we manufactured to the golf course industry for about 20 years, up until recently when I discontinued it because there are literally no new courses of significant volume being built anywhere on the planet. The pandemic resurgence has helped the industry survive, and even thrive. They’re still not building courses. I still keep getting all the industry trades and read this quarterly. Do you?b) I myself belong to a private country club in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My annual senior dues are $10,000/year with a $1200 annual food minimum and a $100 monthly assessment. My family of 5 belongs and can use the 27 holes of golf, pool, racquets facilities, dining rooms, locker rooms, whatever, whenever we want. c) I have taken said family of 5 to Disney World one time, for a week. I spent at LEAST half again as much as the annual dues at place. For a week. Airfare, hotels, park fees, shitty food, whatever. Complete ripoff for a week of “The Disney Experience.”d) My money goes so, so, so much farther at my Country Club than stupid Disney World. I can use the place 365 days a year (ok, minus 52 Mondays so maybe 313 days a year) as much as we want. It’s fantastic. e) We, and many Clubs, have different levels of membership. For example, if you are in your 20’s, single male/female, you can join for $1800/year. That is an insane deal.
f) In conclusion: Not every private Club is Agusta National.
That’s all very interesting, if anecdotal, but doesn’t really address any of the points about why private golf courses are not particularly socially beneficial in the same way places like museums or public parks or even municipal courses are, or why they don’t make a particularly good use of the amount of space they take up or the resources they use, which were the original topics of discussion here. I’m not sure how a comparison to Disney World is relevant, or what actual point you’re trying to make other than “some people can afford to play golf.”
“and some people can afford to go to Disney World” is the second part of said point. Choose how you spend what you make. The problem (which is too strong a word, and I don’t mean it to be rude so I apologize if it seems so) I have with your with the socially beneficial examples > non-municipal golf courses comments is that it infers that they cannot both exist. By your logic, one might say that amusement parks, racetracks, sports complexes are all equally reprehensible. Things can co-exist?
I get your criticisms and a lot of them are valid, but you’re pretty far off on a few things.
One, a vast majority of golf courses are municipal or public courses. It’s a pretty popular game, enjoyed by people of all income levels. Greens fees range for 30-40 bucks to 100-200, depending on the course (and you usually get what you pay for). The ones that get all the attention are the wildly expensive, elitist fancy private clubs because that’s where the pros play, but that’s like saying that having a baseball diamond is a waste because MLB stadiums are really big.
Yes, in drought-prone areas and the freakin’ desert, water usage for a golf course is a travesty. At the bare, absolute, fucking minimum those courses should be required to have drought-resistant, low-water/no-water grass. (Or better, do a whole “desert golf” thing, which is a thing that already exists and is just golf without the grass.)
As for the “the space would be better used for something else” . . . eh. One, you can say that about a LOT of stuff built on private property (there are a fuckton of bullshit urban fortress crap-mansions in my city I’d HAPPILY turn into public community gardens), and two, not that many golf courses are in “prime locations”. A lot of them tend to be built on landfill sites. It’s not like there’s a section of NYC or downtown Chicago carved out for a private country club.
“Who cares if the rich are hiring private militias to keep poor people out of their neighbourhoods? It’s their money, after all.”
I am curious. What would you consider a “greens fee that your average citizen could afford?”
That would depend on the community in question, but something along the lines of the price of going to the movies is probably about right.
So, about $100 then. Sounds about right.
I’m glad I don’t live wherever you’re seeing your movies.
Hah, multiplex = moneyplex 🙂
Very few golf courses are upper-class-only. In most places, $20 gets you nine holes and a seat on a cart.
I agree with you in principle, but we *are* building Louvres in places where they aren’t sustainable — there’s a branch of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, a place that due to erosion and global warming may not even be inhabitable in a couple of decades.
Yo dawg, the Louvre is 40 acres. An *average* golf course is 150. One can fit thousands, is a cultural treasure and is serviced by mass transportation. The other can fit maybe 200, are a dime a dozen and you have to drive little go-karts around the vast amounts of empty space that wage slaves are mowing and watering with millions of gallons of water.So…
Right? WTF was that off the wall comment?
Most leisure activities don’t take up anywhere near the space that golf does, and a lot can be multi-use, which golf can’t. You can play baseball and football on one field. You can host a prom in the Louvre if you want.
Hell in my town there are TWO giant golf courses that are exclusively for the use of the military. What the shit is that? How much land does the military need for golfing?Oh also golf courses tend to have tons of political favors happening on them, especially as pertains to water restrictions and groundwater poison restrictions. To keep that green green, they gotta dump a lot of shit on it that would be illegal anywhere else in the city, but whoops some councilman signed a special exemption for a golf course at a country club, what a weird coincidence that happened 17 times in my city alone.
Of course, because golf was invented in Scotland, a land famed for its endless sunshine and lack of precipitation.
Yeah the historically, absurdly extreme exclusionary and bigoted nature of Country Clubs is deeply shitty. But, to the other point, it’s not like golf courses are taking up swaths of land in urban centers. And having all that green space is at least better than, like, a parking lot or a WalMart, or something. (Though golf courses in places like Arizona have got to go.) But man, hanging the whole article on “Golf is super boring, ha-ha” was a bad choice. That’s some hacky “Evening at the Improv circa 1982″ level of humor, right there.
“Golf is boring, am I right? Is this thing on?”
But, to the other point, it’s not like golf courses are taking up swaths of land in urban centers. And having all that green space is at least better than, like, a parking lot or a WalMart, or something.Honestly a WalMart parking lot would probably be less ecologically damaging than your average golf course. Throw a small park and in some of that land and the area would probably be better off.
I think that the point that we who do not like golf courses are trying to make is that it is basically a very expensive, very limited use private park. It’s not hard to imagine it as a free, broad-use public park and how that would increase its social utility.
“Golf isn’t boring! It’s even more exciting than bowling! And cricket!”
Golf is fun when Red Green does it.
“The two biggest wastes of prime real estate, golf courses and cemeteries.”-Al Czervik.
I’m in it for the fashion.
“Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.” — Dave Barry.
This is dumb shit. Recreation is a socially-beneficial use. We can house people and have various types of public parks as well, including golf courses.
Recreation is a socially-beneficial useThis is a valid defense of municipal courses with inexpensive greens fees. It’s not much of a defense of your average golf course, and certainly not for country club courses where only the wealthy (and primarily white) elite ever see any benefit from them. Given the acreage and resources necessary to maintain a golf course they’re a primary example of extravagantly spending resources for the recreational benefit of the wealthy 1% and no one else.
The wealthy actually pay their own money to belong to said golf courses. That money goes to maintaining these courses. Your money does not, so rest easy.
There are so many tax kickbacks and fundraisers for rich people projects generating more tax kickbacks and special exemptions to environmental restrictions and fees floating around the average golf course that even if rich people pay for it, the taxpayer still ends up paying for it.
Municipal golf courses and reasonably-priced public courses are your average courses. It’s where most golfers play. Myself included. When I was physically able.
I get the impression that everything he knows about golf is from Caddyshack.I’m in Australia and the majority of golf courses are public. A round is about the same as two movie tickets. Which is good value as the greens are nowhere near as sticky as theatre carpet.
“More socially beneficial use.” Seriously? . Sheesh.
As someone who hasn’t played golf due to a lack of talent and interest, I agree with you. I don’t play, but Barsanti’s shitting on it isn’t cool.
Yeah, someone needs to tell that guy to keep his opinions and personal observations out of articles where he’s meant to be giving his opinions and personal observations.
The idea that the AV Club is now a bunch of people defending golf is far more horrifying than any potential “over-woke” nonsense.
Fuck golf, fuck golfers, and fuck golf culture. It’s not just boring and wasteful, it’s intricately tied into capitalist power structures.
No. Golf is just a sport that a lot of people like to play, very few are any good at, and some fucking assholes like to use as a scapegoat for society’s ills.
“Nintendo has finally fixed golf” Finally? What are you talking about, noobcakes? Nintendo have done Mario golf games in the past, and have done them BETTER than Super Rush. Finally??????? Pfffffffffft.
Bowser has a terrible red and black Guy Fieri numberBowser’s outfit is the best! And you add some respect to Guy Fieri’s name next time.
Played the Scarlet Nexus demo and IMMEDIATELY fell in love with it. Part of my falling in love is probably because I had played Bloodborne and totally bounced off it (Father Gascoigne is a fucking shitbird, and the fact that he can juggle you like he’s playing fucking Tekken is a little TOO cheap IMO), but the combat in SN is fast, smooth, and really fun to watch. The idea of playing Nier’s-combat-but-better + Persona-style bonding among the team is REMARKABLY appealing, so as a result, I bought my first brand new, non-discounted game since, like, Hades. Highly recommend giving it a shot and seeing if it’s your mug of matchaI absolutely have misgivings about not continuing with Bloodborne, since that setting and Lovecraft-esque creeping horror is certified as 100% MY SHIT. I got to the point where I could kill everything in Central Yharnam without breaking a sweat and even did pretty well against the Cleric Beast. But I’m level 21 and Gascoigne just feels cheap; the aforementioned juggling is bad enough, but the parry timing feels like you have to shoot before his attack animation has started or else you’re too late; all that plus the fact that the music box seemingly only works some of the time meant that my controller was basically splintering in my hands. Playing Scarlet Nexus and immediately figuring out the combat loop and dodge timing made me realize that life’s too short to play games that ruin your day.
I might qualify as the world’s worst Soulsborne-player. I constantly play as “hollow”, because I’m afraid of invasions. I have only ever beaten one other player visiting me, thanks to somebody assisting me. And if you give me a shield, no matter how small, I’ll proudly disappear behind it.
Still, I have beaten Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne (the latter with all the obvious and less obvious bosses). Without ever getting gud. Oh god, how dedidedly un-gud I still am! How did I do it nevertheless? Mostly, patience. And cheesing. Lots of cheesing. If the game is not above punishing my smallest mistakes, why should I treat it any different?
Father Gascoigne actually was one of the tougher boss fights for me, too, if I remember correctly. But ultimately, I managed to beat him by running away, hiding behind tombstones and stinging him with a very long stick. (Or hitting a very heavy axe.) Thing is, I don’t have the reflexes or the courage to go against any boss openly, but using the environment most often was enough to give me enough of an advantage to somehow still do it. (I was not above looking to wikis for that purpose, either.)
That said, even so, it took me a lot of tries — best of luck to you, anyway. It’s a marvelous game, and well worth sticking with it, even if you’re shit at it, like me.
I’ve beaten every modern From software game except for Sekiro. They’re definitely harder at the beginning. Bloodborne fit me extremely well because I love just smacking away at enemies and then running away. Also, if you like Scarlet Nexus, I would recommend the Tales of games and pretty much every game from Platinum in the past few years. Bayonetta is fantastic
I gave a Bayonetta demo a try, and the combat was just a bit TOO fast. Also, I HATE when action games start running combo meters up, and those high combos end up being the key to actually beating the damn game; I’m too herky jerky for that
Regarding the parry timing in Bloodborne, it differs depending on the gun you use. iirc, the pistol is a little faster.
Gascoigne is one of the larger difficulty spikes in the game though. Took every molotov I’d found up to then.
I’ve just picked up Bloodborne, and Father Gee was really interesting, a really distinct “you have to unlearn Dark Souls to play this”, and actively punishes you if you ever relax back into old comfort zones.
I just fought Vicar Amelia and something I love these games is the sadness and pity it can make you feel for the monsters trying to kill you.
She writhes and cowers at times and some of her attacks are just lashing out and pounding the ground and it felt sad killing her the same way it felt sad killing Sif.
I love the tragic dignity that a lot of the monsters have, while also being extremely unnerving. I lucked out with Amelia* and it only took me a couple tries, but I was still trembling afterward, such a rush.
*Whereas I got completely destroyed by the Hemwick Witch, googled it and all the discussions were like “why is Hemwick Witch so easy?” and “it’s nice that they gave us a break on that one”. Could not deal.
OMFG are you fucking kidding meLike EVERY SINGLE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS says the blunderbuss is an ideal starting weapon for newbies. If the parry window/timing for the pistol is a little quicker, why in FUCK would so many gd guides recommend it????ETA: here’s how goddamn stupid I am during that fight tho: I didn’t even think to use molotovs (at least partially because the windup animation takes seemingly five years to finish), so I was half-assedly using the music box and the quick version of the saw (because I could never get the length of the longer version down)Goddammit. I just deleted it from the console, and now I’m thinking about redownloading and starting a game over just to use the pistol
Blunderbuss has a bit of spread, so it’s easier to hit stuff that’s flitting about. That’s why it’s easier for some.fwiw, when the saw is folded it does serrated damage, which is strong against beasts. Also you can buy the other starting weapons from the birdbath-goblins, if you give them a certain item.
I was just going to ask that. Which item do I have to give them? Would love to not have to restart my game a third time
Less spoilery answer:- a key item guarded by a large enemy off the beaten pathMore spoilery answer:- a badge guarded by pig in the sewers
Oh nice; actually already had it!
You do know that speed golf is a thing and Nintendo didn’t invent it, right?
Would it be fair to say Nintendo invented this console version of it? I think real speed golf still involves carting out to your ball, not running.
No. Not to sound rude, but you’re wrong. It’s the slowest-growing sport in America.
100 Ft. Robot Golf did it first.
Real golf is best described by Mark Twain: “A good walk spoiled”.SOME video game golf is awesome…the Tiger Woods from the early 2000’s, the bizarre yet somehow Dave Attell-ized pure fun of Outlaw Golf stand out in my mind, but I haven’t seen a recreationally playable (not too hard not too complex, something for a guy who plays video games a few hours a week) in a while. I tried a few and they are just too SERIOUS…or pay-to-win which is even worse. I’m possibly going to give this one a go…but does anyone know of a game that fits my criteria?
George Plimpton for Intellivision golf.
I have a weird love of golf games but my favorite tops out in the 90s with Links. I’d consider that recreational enough. The original Golf game on the gameboy is also surprisingly good for a short diversion.
I spent the last few weeks slowly working through *Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter*, which is now my favorite RPG. The game has been overlooked since it came out, but it’s important for A.) creating the system used in the Dead Rising games and B.) experimenting with ways to make RPGs more difficult. It took me until my sixth attempt before everything appropriately clicked and I got through the game. It seems like most RPGs focus on stats, but in this one you’ve got a major focus on gear to get you through. (Although permanently buffing your magic user’s speed and magic stats can often net her two turns in a row in battle that can drastically shorten some fights, getting you through the game faster.) After playing a game that requires you to start over multiple times in order to progress further, I’m not so sure I want to play a proper New Game+ immediately after finishing. It’s nice that another playthrough with new areas and possibly new cutscenes is waiting for me, though.
If a certain Orange Old Fat Tub of Lard plays it regularly and still is fat then golf shouldn’t be called a sport.
This was also in the MUCH better “Everybody’s Golf” along with many other fun features including fishing and Chocobo riding.
Couldn’t get past the opening paragraph of this article. Really tiring of this site’s snark toward anything that doesn’t personally align with its interests or values. This may stun you, but just because you don’t personally like an activity, that doesn’t mean it (or the people who do the activity) are inherently stupid. Hell, I’m not even an avid golfer (I play like five times a year), but even if I never played it, I wouldn’t insult the game or its players, especially in an article about a video game based on the sport.
Man, fuck golf.
My physcial copy of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered arrived yesterday. I bought physical because it was relatively cheap and I’d rather have a physical cartridge, which works out great because the Switch is region-free. Unfortunately I didn’t research well enough to realize that the Asian release is Japanese-only. It’s a simple enough game and I got into the groove after a couple of tries despite the language barrier. Still, I have to whip out Google Translate when it comes time to pick artifacts, and even then “Kurobito +1″ isn’t super helpful.I also have Maneater and Paper Mario: The Origami King arriving tomorrow on physical. I wasn’t planning to ever play the latter, but the kid has been watching Let’s Plays and wants to experience it herself (by which I mean make me play while she bosses me around). It’s a long weekend, so I should have some time to play games for once. Also might try to get in a quick game of 40K, but who knows.
Continuing my adventures in Scarlet Nexus. I’m currently in Phase 5 of Yuito’s story, and while the combat is good fun — telekinetically ramming a car into a monster’s face will always be satisfying — I’m finding the story increasingly difficult to follow, and nobody’s motivations are clear at all. Piling twist on top of twist is all well and good, but it’s completely meaningless unless: a) I have investment in these characters; and b) I understand what the hell is going on. Right now, Scarlet Nexus is failing on both those fronts. I think this will all make more sense once I play through Kasane’s story, but that’s major delayed gratification.Nearing the end of Xenoblade Chronicles. I’m on Prison Island for the second time, which I believe is the final dungeon. Disciple Lorithia was an awful fucking boss, and I’m so glad to be past her. I don’t mind difficult bosses; I mind bosses where you don’t feel like you’re actually playing the game. If you’re being immobilized or having your powers taken away every 15 seconds, there’s no fun to be had. Also, the Monado Visions are obtrusive and constant, and they kill the flow of combat. Finally, the Novas have huge invisible walls around them, which restrict the player’s ability to move around the battlefield. Couple that with dumb-as-fuck AI partners who keep running into the fucking poisonous acid, and you have a recipe for one of the most frustrating boss fights ever made. I just want this game to be over now.
I got a PS5 this week. Not sure if I should grab something apart from Astro’s Playroom – nothing that really looks up my alley so far.
Scarlet Nexus continues to be excellent. The combat is very, very good and I’m impressed how responsive and engaging it is while also being very fluid and cinematic. It’s really just a couple of buttons, there aren’t complicated combos at all and it’s almost like the FFX-2 style job switching with how it uses psychic powers, but it never feels like the game is playing itself for you. Impressive stuff and it just looks dope.I’m also very pleasantly surprised by the story. It’s sci-fi pulp with shonen trappings, but it’s well-paced, snappy and coherent. What I’m perhaps most impressed with, though, is the fact that the characters are communicating. Constantly. Like, it’s almost praise for common sense, but so many stories rely on the characters withholding information from each other for no reason or straight up turning them into idiots for the sake of plot development. Scarlet Nexus’ story is moving at an often breakneck pace and it’s entirely driven by the characters making more or less smart decisions, but it never relies on people keeping others out of the loop unless they really, really have to, often under the threat of death (and even then they are actively scheming to figure out a way to sidestep that).There’s a scene relatively early on when a Big Thing Happens which the two teams witness. One of the teams encounters someone shifty who explains the basic gist of what happened but also tells them not to tell anyone for any reason… so when the other team comes over they basically go “well you’ve seen that shit anyway, so here’s what happened, and by the way we were told not to tell you”, and instead of some contrived bullshit both parties begin sharing info so they could piece together more of the plot. Things go wrong in this story a lot, but it’s mostly because of some truly extraordinary circumstances.It’s small stuff, but holy shit, is it unexpected. I’m not saying that withholding information is always bad since a lot of fantastic stories rely on that (like 2021’s best anime series, Odd Taxi – I cannot recommend it enough, it’s this year’s tightest script and a phenomenal crime thriller and you owe it to yourself to watch it), but even more utilize it when it makes no goddamn sense. So when I see multiple characters employing the magic power of common sense and realizing that they are in a sci-fi setting so pretty much everything is possible, I can’t do anything but clap.This partially works also because of two very trite character archetypes that the game manages to make enjoyable by just doing them well. Yuito is your standard shonen protagonist who is incredibly earnest, heroic and well-natured, but the story examines how easily that archetype can be used for bad shit AND it also means that Yuito is always sensitive to other people’s motivations – when he sees someone doing Bad Shit, he first and foremost tries to learn why, unlike many other shonen idiots. Kasane is your vaguely Aspergery cold waifu, but they are playing her social awkwardness realistically – she’s not confused by love or affection and she perfectly knows how to lie and obfuscate, just rarely sees the point and is instead very blunt. Which works in her favor because people know they can trust her, and refreshingly she’s never called an emotionless robot or anything like that by anyone; when she says something rude, people just tell her that, she apologizes and they move on.My only problem with the script is that while solidly acted in both Japanese and English, it’s somewhat overwritten. Like, the action is very snappy with a lot of forward momentum – again, because the characters fucking talk to each other – but a lot of the dialogue is extraneous or kind of cyclical, which I think might be a problem with the translation. It’s not bad, but like a lot of the less fun stuff in this game it’s just… eh? Like, sidequests are tedious (and unlike Nier Replicant you don’t even get cool stories and banter from them) and literally pointless since you can craft or buy or find every reward; the chapter end “social link” stuff could have been spread out better because it slows down the pacing, particularly towards the end; the level design is just uninspired; and the inventory mechanics, such as they are, are pretty much just there.It’s interesting because none of Scarlet Nexus’ worst points are truly awful – the sidequests are the worst offenders but they are also completely optional unless you really want that platinum trophy – but the game’s story, combat and presentation (holy shit does this thing look and sound good – it’s one of the most fluid jRPGs since Persona 5 when it comes to coherence of presentation and the soundtrack just fucking rocks) are just so well done that those meh things seem so, so much worse than they are.
I’m also liking SN. I do think some of those “comic panel” style dialogue scenes slow down the pacing a lot though. It kind of takes you out of the story a bit more.
I got used to them. They are definitely overused (too many scenes of actual action are done through those motion comics), but at the end of the day I prefer them to the Yakuza-style talking heads that IMO would kill the pacing a lot harder with this kind of story. I mean, they are more dynamic than the VN segments in Persona, it’s just that SN’s plot goes dicks out so quickly and it almost never stops that it’s somewhat jarring to have it delivered this way.Still! I appreciate their commitment to making your character customization stick for everything, even the loading screens.
I had a fucking BALL with the demo, and immediately ordered the game (which I never do). Cannot wait to get deep with it
You just put a game that I didn’t give a fuck about squarely on my radar. Bravo and thank you.
Still playing through Scarlet Nexus. I’m enjoying it so far. The story is just starting to get interesting, but there aren’t really enough enemies to make some of the fights interesting. Interested to play through the second campaign though.
stripping away all of the boring stuff where nothing happens and replacing it with windmills and waterfalls and pirates.Good job. Next on the agenda: fix baseball and American football.
You leave baseball alone. Every attempt to “fix” it just makes it worse.And there is no saving American football. That’s just a fundamentally broken game.
I mean, considering how far baseball has slipped in popularity (about to be lapped by soccer in the US), yeah, it needs some saving.
Soccer might occasionally draw better TV ratings; it doesn’t come within 18 miles of making as much revenue as baseball in the US.
No way to fix baseball?
BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERNNNNNNN!
Base Wars on the NES figured out how to fix baseball- add killer cyborgs with a variety of weapons that settles tag or base outs with a one on one fight.
American football has already been fixed: Blood Bowl
I disagree, they way overdo the Speed Golf. Its fun, but the entire adventure mode is 3-9hole speed golf (Or XC). Why tell me “we don’t play speed golf here because the weather is so bad” then “ohh, we aren’t holding a tournament due to the bad weather, how about you play a round of speed golf?” And where are tournaments?The game (and new modes) are fun, and the mechanics are great. The content feels extremely lacking, and adventure mode feels like they had more planned (like going back and actually playing each course fully in a tournament) but it got dropped. Luckily it does sound like they will be adding content. But I’m starting to dislike this from Nintendo. Mario Tennis was similar, shipped half done and then added stuff down the line.
I’m starting to feel this competition between my backlog and a list of games I’d like to buy. I’m seeing people have a lot of fun with Mario Golf, in communities where I’d totally be welcome to drop in and shoot the shit for a round of 18, but with my backlog all formalized, release dates clearly marked, including games I bought in like 2005 and actually thought I’d play through sooner than 15 years later… it’s hard for me to look at this list and say, “Yes, I need a new $60 game.”So this past week, with a combination of work being too dogshit busy and the PNW weather being too dogshit hot to want to do anything but fumble with a controller on the ol’ recliner, I had a game-purging LIGHTNING ROUND. In spite of making 3 Steam summer sale purchases last week, I’ve knocked more games off than I’ve added on.The first of said purchases was DLC for Scythe: Digital Edition that added in two new factions and two new player mats. This was largely just a $6 trial to see if I actually wanted to pick up the physical expansion. And… I dunno, the jury’s still out. I nabbed all the new achievements that didn’t specifically require online play, and I finally actually got a sense for just how much player mats factor into strategy. I like that the expansion would come just short of doubling the number of faction/player mat combos, from 25 to 49, but my one and only game night regular at this point doesn’t get Scythe and isn’t terribly excited to give it a second go. This may remain a single-player game for me, and if so, digital’s so much less setup, so I’ll be coming back to this to scratch my strategy itch every now and again, but it’s off the backlog.Valdis Story: The Abyssal City never really got better. It’s a difficult, combat-focused metroidvania with choices between pure melee vs magic builds, but this game ain’t Hollow Knight. Even as I continued getting better, the game stopped being fun about a third of the way in. And still, I beat it. On hard, at that. So it’s off the backlog.I played through the tutorial to Sentinels of the Multiverse. It was a game I enjoyed playing with other people in person when we still had comic shops hosting game nights. As a single-player game, managing 4 different heroes, it doesn’t feel like an excessive number of actions to manage or anything, but it was a more interesting experience playing a 4v1 with an actual 4 vs an actual 1. For $0.99, I don’t feel like I wasted too much money on a game I don’t really want to solo. So it’s off the backlog.So I booted up Hypnospace Outlaw, which gave me flashbacks to having a page on Geocities and being a GameFAQs forum moderator at the turn of the millennium. It was fun digging through all the websites to see how much was delicious flavor text and how much was exposition or even information critical to solving the game’s mysteries, but all the intrigue felt very low-stakes against a background of grainy 3D animated gifs, recycled webpage templates, midis of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and ads for Y2K survival kits. Consistently funny, nailed the nostalgia, but catching the bad guy felt like a low-res formality. Finished the game, and it’s off the backlog.And in Tales of Eternia, I finished disc 1 and got to start meeting some Celestians and exploring a wacky world where the water is purple and they have guns. I imagine I have another three craymel to fight/catch, followed by some kind of cataclysmic battle, and then disc 3 is either going to allow me to travel freely between the two worlds or some plot device will merge them, such that I’m still able to visit the important locations in both, with new paths to previously inaccessible areas from both worlds and collect the light/dark craymel?So far, this has felt like an alpha version of Symphonia with fewer moving parts but the same general structure. It’s still fun, and there haven’t been any heavy dips or spikes in the difficulty since the second continent, but I’m not sure how much of this game’s plot I’m going to remember in a year.
Golf is horrendous for the environment. It needs to be banned. There should be zero public funded golf courses. Turn the land into parks or areas that don’t suck up all the water. Death to golf and the fascists who play it. Don’t dare consider yourself a leftist or friend of the environment if you do. Golf accelerates climate change.
I’m sorry, but that water think ain’t entirely true: http://www.cooberpedygolfclub.com.au
Mini-Golf > Regular Golf
I tried out Solasta this week, and, boy, all the people online talking about how terrible the writing and VO are were not kidding or exaggerating, not even a little bit. Some of the vocal performances sound like they’re in on the joke, and are still bad. That’s how bad it is.
Otherwise, I guess it’s a fairly faithful adaptation of 5e (which is “Next” too, I guess?) except for the bugs. Bugs in a crunchy tabletop adaptation are the fucking worst. They immediately ruin my day. Knowing I’m supposed to have an extra +4 somewhere that I’m not getting? The. Worst.It’s kind of amazing how many big, drawing-board-level problems 5e failed to fix. I guess that means it’s a design philosophy. But Solasta remains loyal and chugs along with a classic “zeroes thrown into the apocalypse and ding level up” campaign, complete with an artifact that makes one particular party member noticeably better at stuff for the entire run (thank goodness it’s a single-player game, huh?)So, it was fine, but I kind of fell off after a few hours. It just didn’t hold my interest against the occasional bugs. As much as I appreciate some of the streamlining 5e has done (the advantage/disadvantage system in particular seems like really good streamlining for a video game, though I can already imagine a million ways it could be exploited at the table,) I feel like I’m even less able to customize my character than I was before, and I’m still dealing with the same old balance problems. On top of that, there’s even some new “balance” ideas that are hilariously tone-deaf to the aforementioned perennial balance problems. The attunement limit for magical items is hilariously tone-deaf; magical items were the way that GMs desperately tried to keep other classes in line with wizards.
I loved Nintendo golf right from the beginning. I’d play it sitting in my rented condo looking out at tourists playing real golf on the Princeville Golf Course on Kauai. lol
In my opinion, speed golf is the worst way to play the game. Playing normal golf with the turns set to not force turn taking and you just golf is the way to go. All of the forced speed golf you have to do in adventure mode for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON was enough for my wife and I to never ever play speed golf again.
Welcome to the new AV Club commentariat, where if the article is about Indian people being uncomfortable about a white man doing a pisstake of their accent then they’re over-sensitive crybabies who need to shut up, but if the article jokingly suggests that golf is maybe a stupid game, the writer is worse than Hitler because some people like golf.
We’re in the Farenheit 451 future, where noone can be negative or critical about anything.I mean, I’m among those who find most of the snark in AVC articles to be shockingly egregious; but it’s fucking GOLF.
Great headline! I read the first paragraph, and will not be reading you from now on.
Maybe Nintendo can tackle the AV Club next.
It gives me an indecent amount of pleasure to point out that the idea of speed golf was invented by House Guest, that timeless Sinbad & Phil Hartman comedy that none of us can stop quoting.
Any word on how Super Rush compares to the old GBC Mario Golf?
Been playing Mario Golf a lot and while it’s entertaining, there are some lazy LAZY bugs / quirks that you’d expect to find in budget golf games, rather than top-tier brand-name games. For example, if you land in a bunker / sand trap, the system selects a sand wedge for you which has shorter range but is supposedly the right club for recovering the ball from the sand, but if you select a driver and use that, the ball behaves as if you hit it off the tee, so landing in a bunker is basically the same as landing on the fairway. The ground you’re on has no impact on the ball behaviour, it just adds a multiplier to the random inaccuracy scale on the swing, which really doesn’t make any critical difference to the player’s path to the green. So you can just use the rough and ignore the fairway and it’s all the same. Also, while the first courses have a lovely texture and colour to them, the last few courses have some TERRIBLE pixelated and compressed textures even on the fairway and green – N64 era texture quality.
Nintendo has finally fixed golfWhat the Golf? and Golf Story, the two best golf games in existence, would like to have a word with you.