Quick Look: 100ft Robot Golf

In addition to what you've said, it seems like they also skimped on the most important part about 80's / 90's anime - quality impactful animation.

Example (starts at 0:26):

These characters and their illustrations look cool in this game, but they either barely animate... or are poorly animated (see the jump jets on the mech when Alex was piloting the CRGI mech - ZERO body animation at all - literally just moving the position of the mech).

The AI in this game seems ~*fantastic*~ as the CPU character continuously hits the ball into the water for nearly 3 MINUTES from 8:50 - 11:25

This game is a great example of the notion that just because something sounds funny in a pitch meeting, that doesn't mean it's going to be funny in the final product.

Pitch: Let's make it an homage to 80's anime, complete with bad fan dubbing.
Reality: Turns out bad voice acting gets irritating pretty quickly.

Pitch: Let's get our game industry friends in to help out and make references to industry things.
Reality: Literally only other game industry people and Giant Bomb fans would care, and even then just making in-jokes for the sake of in-jokes isn't really funny.

Pitch: Let's get the McElroy brothers, 3 of the funniest dudes on the planet, to record the commentary.
Reality: Listening to them riff off (and laught at) each other with their free-form comedy is wonderful. A collection of canned jokes that are repeated over and over? Not so much.

Yeahhhhh this concept had potential but doesn't look like they pulled it off unfortunately. As for the McElroy's, it feels like the game was going for a fake "whispered golf analyst" vibe for the commentary, which isn't really in line with their brand of humor. They're prone to loud outbursts when reacting to and playing off each other. Here it sounds like they all recorded VO separately and it just plays a line when it thinks it might be appropriate.

PS If you aren't familiar with the McElroys, don't let this game sour you. I actually think Griffin McElroy is probably the closest thing to a Vinny clone out there right now (I say that in the most positive way possible). He just loves creating horrible creatures and breaking games in various terrible wonderful ways.

What they've done here is produce a concept devoid of entertainment.

@sparky_buzzsaw: Can we get nother Mutant League anything?

The sound effect when hitting the ball is so annoying. Turned off the QL after a few mins. Also the camera angle when tracking a hit ball looks horrible.

I enjoyed my time with the game. The art is just fantastic and really nails that 80's anime look. I even enjoyed the game, but it was not the best golfing game by a wide margin, it was something that I dealt with to just get to the next cutscene. That being said, I will always be interested in what No Goblin and Dan Teasdale make, as they just seem to go for it, kinda like Double Fine on a smaller scale.

Edit: Also shoutout to Brad Muir and Eric Pope for being good characters in the game

That's totally the corgi from Cowboy Bebop, the one with the red thing around its neck. It looks so much like the Cowboy Bebop corgi that I thought they had posted a video from some Cowboy Bebop video game that I didn't even know about.

There, fixed it for you. :)

Feels like a game made by people so pleased with how funny they were that they forgot to check if anyone was laughing.

I've always felt NoGoblin's games feel tailor-made just to get coverage on Giant Bomb; like GB fan-projects that should be covered in the "Community Showcase" articles, rather than commercial projects aimed to sell to a mass market who might not get a single one of the weird in-jokes that seem so prevalent in them. It's fascinating... and sometimes almost a little concerning.

This gameplay is more boring than actual real golf games, how the hell does that happen?

The premise is fantastic but the execution feels completely amateur. There are barely any animations and everything is extremely slow, bland, and boring to look at. What a bummer.

While it's likely intentionally referencing Bepop, it's also Dan & Panzers corgi, Cassie.

Thanks for the quick look. This should be a fun holiday multiplayer game for me and my family.

i assume the rock band stage kit support is being patched in later

@charlie_victor_bravo: Did the Five Night's at Freddy's guy do that as a member of Team Giant Bomb? Didn't think so. Regardless, no one said shit about any kind of charity metric. It's just a nice thing that they didn't have to do but literally did 2 days ago. And if you want to really get into this, FNAF has more minute to minute coverage on Giant Bomb thanks to Patrick and Spookin' with Scoops. But yeah uneducated pleb and blah blah.

@whatshisface: It's a Quick Look. Not a review. And Alex and Vinny aren't exactly telling everyone to run out and buy it.

Fun concept, but still looks clunky and not fun.

Oddly enough, I thought the temp announcing they showed off (believe it was just the two devs) awhile ago was better than what they shipped with.

Game With the Most Industry In-jokes of the Year 2016

I love No Goblin's style and I love pretty much everything the McElroys do but this is just... not for me I suppose.

A shame, I was pretty excited by the concept when it was announced.

So is the AI just broken? It seemed like on the first 2 holes it just got stuck repeating the same shot and never correcting itself

Super appropriate thumbnail! 5 dogs and this game is 5 dogs worth of WOOF!

The humour is a massive miss for me. The vs golf doesn't look fun at all and it just feels cheap and bad. What's with that AI? Why would you waste your time messing with the other player?

Feels like the designers industry friends told them it was hilarious! And that they need more honest friends...

@gitarooman: Thats exactly what I was thinking, them not noticing it was driving me crazy!

Oh boy.

I really liked Roundabout - In spite of its flaws I found it fun to play - but this game looks like a total miss on all fronts: Poor gameplay, jokes falling flat, visuals not looking great (apart from the neat cutscenes).

The little nods and asides to the games media which, for me anyway, fell just the right side of reasonable in Roundabout don't seem to cut it here.

Vinny and Alex gave it a fair look.

Interesting concept but for the most part the execution seems to be a swing and a miss.

(Don't worry, I'll see myself out...)

Hey, it's handibot!

Holy Evangelion.

The amount of work they put into the presentation for this is impressive.

LOCKDOWN

@tiefling: Are you serious?

Mcelroy brothers, and gold game. Rory was busy I guess?

Seriously, Justin and Griffin are national treasures.

well...actually, no? did you see the same video as me?im not the only comment here saying they did a badjob at the commentary. it wasnt funny and a lot of people agree.

I just hope that differing opinions on this game don't drive a wedge between people.

Man what an absolutely bummer. When they debuted it at one of those conventions, I thought it looked like an absolute slam dunk of a concept. Now that I've seen the VR portion and the non-VR portion... it just doesn't look like it nailed the execution of the concept at all. That bad voice over work for the cut scenes is the nail in the coffin for me.

My girlfriend just got a corgi and they're wonderful little puppies to have around. Which means I'll have to pass on this since my corgi needs are fulfilled elsewhere.

I wouldn't worry, with exception to some shitty comments, most people's opinions here about the game itself seem on par.

Hmm, I'll most likely end up playing this at some point for a style even if the gameplay is rather bland.

I was really ready to love this game. I love the McElroys and Monster Factory, Roundabout was good silly fun, the character design and art here are great. There are a lot of people I like a great deal involved here. But the end product falls extremely flat for me.

The McElroys are funny because they've known each other all their lives and riff off each other really well. Having them individually read lines kind of... misses the point? I know they all live in different parts of the country, so maybe it was a logistics thing, but I feel like this was a wasted opportunity.

I've barely smiled at anything I've seen in this game, much less laughed. And I 100% expected to. It's so strange.