Quick Review: Golf Gang

Sometimes all you need to wind down and relax is a bit of mini-golf- wait, that’s not relaxing.

Starting off easy.

Developed by Lazy Monday Games, published by Curve Games and released on May 19th, 2022, Golf Gang is mini-putt with a twist, just how I like it. Classic of this sport, you’re given a series of 18 greens in which to send your golf ball, but the tricky part is to actually get there. And there isn’t just one course... there’s eight. That means... *pulls out calculator*... A lot! All the way from a classic golf course to an alpine resort, passing by the beach, a science station, and a Halloween world... the classics. There’s two courses per difficulty level, though you purchase seven of them using the in-game currency.

Tossing your ball while it's already in flight? Yep.

The difference? You can shoot your ball again while it’s in motion. To counterbalance this new freedom, you have a gauge that refills between strokes – and the stronger your previous stroke was, the longer it takes to recharge. The courses are designed with this in mind; some elements automatically refill your gauge, like red balloons in midair that must often be hit one after the other to cross large chasms. To further ease the new gameplay, the ball doesn't need to get in the hole; it only needs to get very close to it. This change makes sense, since we often need to aim at the flagpole while the ball is flying and moving.

No longer enough to be shot at the flagpole,
now it has to take a deltaplane too?

In single player, there are three game modes. There’s Classic Golf, where all that matters is how many strokes you need to get to the hole on each level. Then there’s Time Mode, where all that matters is the time you took (with Bronze, Silver and even Gold medals to boot). Finally, the actual Golf Gang calculates both your strokes and your time into a letter grade for each hole, from S to F, cumulating your grades across 18 holes and giving you the average at the end. In all three modes, a better performance means more gold balloons (the in-game currency), which can then be spent on color trails for your ball, new eyes painted on it, a hat and/or an accessory, or a full-on new ball design.

Some of these courses really overdo it with
hazards. I especially hated the moving jump pads
in the Science Station course.

Multiplayer lets you choose either of the three modes, whether you want all 18 holes, or just one set of 9 in any unlocked course; and you can also choose to add up to four unlockable Modifiers, turning the game into a party! And really, that’s what the game feels the most like: An absolute blast when multiple players fight each other across the courses, racing for the flagpole/competing on strokes, with Modifiers to spice it up. And the greens are designed with tons of obstacles, to make it even more challenging in multiplayer. In fact, I’d argue that there are too many obstacles on every course. It becomes too much, especially on higher difficulties. It’s nuts. And makes the game a lot less enjoyable as a solo player, since we’re then left to face all of these on our own. What’s more, it feels as though the ball's maximum speed is much slower than in other mini-golf games

The red balloons return on every course, but each
one has its own gimmick. The winter courses
have ice, Autumn Breeze has strong winds,
Haunted Hollow has "ghost" balloons that move,
Sky Temple has portals...

Oh, and can I mention the controls? Everything is done with the mouse, absolutely everything. You throw the ball by holding down the Left-Click and pulling back to determine the speed. The mouse is also how you control the camera, and you can only send the ball forward in the direction the camera is pointing! I hope you’re good at repositioning on the fly towards the exact direction in which you want to go! It’s especially bad in the aforementioned “balloons in midair” issue, where a single missed stroke means having to start over from the first balloon. This, combined to the obstacles, made for a game that I felt was more frustrating than rewarding, an issue I didn’t have with other golf games.

Maybe it really is better in multiplayer, where you can share in the chaos. Can’t say I see myself playing it solo all that much more, despite the completion challenges present (like getting a Gold medal on every time trial).

Golf Gang is available on Steam for 9.99$ USD.

Splinter Cell

Tell me what you know, then I'll knock you out.
Or if you know nothing, instant knock-out.

Back to the well of older games I got for free on Ubisoft Connect. That won’t replace The Crew, but it’s just as fine. We’re back to stealth games, and discussing a franchise I never talked about before. Well... Splinter Cell is a franchise, but it’s also known as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and Tom Clancy is a brand name all its own, with the French game studio having made several games inspired by the author’s works. Spy thrillers, international intrigues, stories of counterterrorism cells and whatnot.

Don’t go in there expecting suave James Bond, your missions will be “go in, kill no one, get the info, GTFO”. Later entries in the series became more shooter than stealth, but the early games are far more stealth-based. It’s a running thread in Ubisoft’s catalog, with Beyond Good and Evil featuring stealth sections, and then there’s this series as well; add Prince of Persia’s penchant for parkour, and it feels like their past output long foreshadowed Assassin’s Creed, now one of their flagships.

The first Splinter Cell game was released on damn near every platform existing in late 2002/early 2003: Xbox, PS2, GameCube, GBA, mobile, friggin’ N-Gage... and of course a PC port, on February 18th, 2003. This game has been sitting unplayed in my backlog for something like seven years. I don’t know if that franchise will click with me, there’s only one way to find out...

Third Echelon

Classic army training course.

We play as Sam Fisher, former Navy SEAL and CIA operative, who has been selected to join Third Echelon, a new initiative from the NSA. The idea is to send a solitary operative in high-conflict areas where they can find intel and deal with threats, all in secret. Briefed by his friend, Colonel Irving Lambert, Fisher is first put through a standard soldier obstacle course so his physical aptitude can be tested. This first tutorial isn’t too difficult.

The second is a lot trickier, as this is where you’re taught various stealth and mission-critical elements. You’re shown how to sneak around, grab people from behind and interrogate them for information or carry them around, and other tricks (shooting lights and cameras, or changing your movement speed to reduce sound). If you even do one thing wrong, you’ll start over from the latest checkpoint, of which there’s a lot since you’re learning the ropes. It’s very, VERY easy to do things wrong in this game. 

Because this is training, I was looking for some way to let
go of the guy without knocking him out. Not possible!
Sorry buddy, I'm just training but you'll be K.O.ed for real.
Since I failed before that for knocking him out before
getting the code to the door, I thought K.O.ing him again
would as well.

Imagine accidentally killing a colleague who was there to remind you how to get intel from someone. No, not speaking from experience... Also not speaking from experience, I basically had to remap the entire controls to get something remotely functional.

Sorry for the French text, my games on UbiConnect default
to French. Anyway, this is Lambert yelling at me for falling
in the street. Christ, I just fell when I tried jumping
between two patios!

Also, you know when I said that it’s easy to do things wrong in this game? You find out very quickly in the first mission. Weapons-wise, every enemy is as equipped as you are, putting you on equal footing, and bullets are rare. That’s why knocking opponents from behind is so important; if you go in guns blazing, you’re gonna die fast. A mission can end when you die, but sometimes Lambert will terminate it because you didn't follow his orders. Maybe you walked in the street while Lambert forbade it. Maybe you knocked out/killed someone you needed to get intel from or to open a retinal scan door. Maybe you were spotted enough times for three alarms to be heard. Maybe you just looked some guy wrong. Sometimes I wasn't even sure what caused the mission to fail!

The Crew (non-review)

I’ll be going back to Ubisoft Connect for tomorrow's review, to cover another game that’s been waiting in the backlog for a long time. But, to not clutter that review with a long aside, here’s an announcement about that backlog. And Ubisoft.

My system involves keeping track of my significant backlog of games through websites such as HowLongToBeat and, more recently, Backloggd. With the sheer number of titles waiting to be played, it’s inevitable that I would miss out on the perfect time window to try some of them. Over the past few years, some of my reviews felt more like eulogies for games left for dead when their servers were taken down (Streamline, Offensive Combat, etc.), that I’ve picked up too late. It’s jarring whenever it happens, but I might have escaped it often due to focusing on single-player experiences.

This backlog issue of mine is especially prevalent with Ubisoft, whose games I would forget about were it not for a conscious effort to remember that I have them. Not a dig at the company; but since most of my collection is physical or on Steam, I almost forget about the dozen games I’ve gotten for free over the years through the company’s events. (The only money I ever paid on Ubisoft games on Connect’s store was for the first three Rayman platformers, covered in 2022.)

One of those free games obtained in... 2016, I believe?, I did actually test for a few minutes: The then-19Gb racing/open world title The Crew (1), which did not leave a lasting impression. Again, not a dig, I booted it up out of curiosity and merely felt like seeing what it was like. It seemed to have a decent single-player campaign and an impressive map to visit. Could have been interesting to cover, but I didn’t play it long enough to form an opinion.

On December 31st, 2023, Ubisoft released a statement that they were delisting the game, and shutting down the servers three months later. This gave its players until March 31st to enjoy their open world racer as they saw fit, as it would no longer be possible afterwards. (Yeah, I’m making this announcement four months late. I’m late to a lot of things.) I do understand Ubisoft’s decision, as the multiplayer aspect of the game meant keeping the servers active, and nearly 10 years after release, it was likely wiser to turn off the machine than to keep it going only for a handful, especially after the release of The Crew 2 in 2018 and another sequel, Motorfest, in 2023.

But since this thing’s been waiting to be tested for the blog for over seven years (I’d check, but Connect doesn’t keep track of when games are added to your collection!), I felt I could at least acknowledge its existence, and now its absence. Good night street racer, and the whirring of modified cars sing thee to thy rest.

Literally only tried the first mission and saw the map, so I
knew the game world was big, but I didn't actually get to
see much of it.

And hey, at least we’ve been told about this in advance. When it comes to Ubisoft, that’s a lot better than some of their more recent statements, like gamers having to accept a future where they don’t own the games they buy... Anyway, The Crew is now out of my backlog entirely. That’s 18 less hours of gaming for me to worry about. Stay tuned tomorrow for a review of a different Ubisoft game, and that one better still work.

Valheim (Part 5)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Guess we’re ending this today.

Mines and Magic

Damn, these places are so creepy.

Finding the boss is more complicated in the Mistlands than anywhere else. Look for Vegvisirs deep within Infested Mines packed with ticks and seekers. In there, you can also find black cores and Sealbreaker fragments. You need black cores for the latest crafting tables, and nine fragments to build a Sealbreaker, the key that opens the door to the Queen.

We are literally mining the brains out of a dead giant and
combining this to Yggdrasil sap to make our magic.

You’ll also want to look for Jotun skeletons laying around, made of marble that cannot be mined except with black metal pickaxes or better. These dead giants still have squishy brains, which you mine for soft tissue. Then, build an eitr refinery and turn both sap (obtained from extractors on Yggdrasil roots) and soft tissue into refined eitr, necessary for every Mistlands-level worktable and piece of equipment.

It's not flying, it's falling with style.

Including the feather cape. See, navigating the Mistlands is bullshit. I talked in Part 4 about the rough terrain. I’d go a step above and say that the sixth biome is “make it or break it”, in that visiting it is so difficult and annoying that this is the point where many players either soldier on or give up. It’s a difficulty spike beyond anything seen before. While playing to write this part, my viking died at least once by falling to his death because I couldn’t see how low the ground was. It was fun getting back to that gravestone. The powerful enemies aren’t helping. It take more work to get to a point where you’re comfortable in the Mistlands, since the good items are all locked behind the refined eitr, itself tough to obtain in the first place.

Everything changes when you finally a) craft a feather cape, which lets you flutter down, negating fall damage, and b) learn to use magic, even if limited by what you can cast with your wand.

I almost never used ooze bombs before. Now, they're one of
my favorite weapons within dungeons. Thanks, mines!

But even then, clearing the Mistlands is an arduous process, because black cores and Sealbreaker fragments can be rare as fuck and you’ll be forced to visit a lot of infested mines to get everything you need. And those aren’t exactly easy dungeons, either, with loads of enemies in cramped spaces. I had to visit four of them to get enough fragments and cores, and all of them left my Viking beat within an inch of his life. With combat on fucking Very Easy.

Fighting The Queen

It was a relief to finally be able to craft the Sealbreaker and head towards the Queen. Her Citadel was located near the Ashlands. The solution? Get Moder power, sail for two in-game days, park near those Mistlands, set up portal, go home, sleep, get Bonemass power, upgrade every piece of equipment to the best stuff, get the best foods (which means I took a long detour to raise chickens and grow onions!), then finally step in.

Valheim (Part 4)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Dang, already at 4 parts? Guess that’s what happens when a review doubles as a full-on guide...

The Mistlands – “The Queen”

This guy must be eating spicy. Look at that fire.

Not a pretty sight this close. Or from afar, really.

Yagluth, you’re going down. When it’s summoned, you find yourself fighting a giant skeleton top half with a crown. The undead king of the fulings, allegedly. A spitfire on his best days, and when he’s angry, he can rain meteors on your head. Beware the explosion when he smashes the ground with his fist. He has no weaknesses to exploit, but his attacks all involve fire in some way, making fire resistance barley wine vital in this battle. You can also take cover behind the stone pillars surrounding his altar.

Right, the meteors. This guy gets points for theatrics.

A long battle eventually won – and for that, you get Yagluth’s trophy, which unlocks his power, granting massive temporary resistance to magic, fire, frost, and lightning. You also get Torn Spirits, with which you can build wisp fountains, which summon wisps at night. Those wisps can be made into wisplights, which will follow you around and disperse the mist of the Mistlands; you can also craft them into wisp torches to plant on your path.

I know it's in the name, but still - it's annoying that
you can't see shit around here.

Not unlike the swamp, the Mistlands mark an intense difficulty spike. Everything turned up to 11. You’ll need to be brave and well-prepared to face it. It’s an infamously nasty place, home to the worst monsters yet. When I played in the multiplayer server, the streamer grew to hate the new biome, and wouldn’t go there unless they absolutely had to. Or had a team to explore it with. I guess now is as good a time as any to discuss multiplayer a bit.

When I said we become hoarders, that wasn't a joke. This
is all in one solo game. Not shown are 30 more chests
in other rooms, as well as 15 more where my portals are
so I can quickly empty my pockets when necessary.

It helps that I had my two solo runs to see what the game was like on my own, as it let me see just how many resources a single player needs. Now take that amount and multiply it by the number of folks in your multiplayer game. If you want everybody to have the best equipment and food, that is. That’s probably not gonna happen. Depending on how the team gets structured, everyone may get equipped with everything, or folks might settle into roles, as is often done in MMOs; one who can take damage, one who uses melee weapons, one who uses ranged weapons... Due to the variety in threats across Valheim, it may be better to stay prepared for anything.