Unfinished: EX: Dangerous Golf 04/27/2016

A few thoughts:

1. The EX format continues to be the most manicured, and thus least trustworthy way to look at unfinished games. If unfinished games are going to continue to be covered (which given the way games come out in stages these days seems likely) then I understand that the EX format is likely the best way to do it... but I am significantly more critical while watching them. When I watch a quick look, I know that there's a possibility that the people playing it are potentially wrong or have missed something in their coverage but it is still a more natural interaction with a product. The EX format is a guided tour... which means that I'd really have to be wowed in order for my interest to increase.

2. I wasn't wowed by this game... It looked interesting... but not finished... and almost certainly aimed at someone other than me.

3. It felt like a bit like a pitch to investors... pre-prepared in places... with certain phrases shoehorned in. I really did like the guy who was presenting it though... He was seemingly a little nervous and correspondingly overly talkative but I came out of it believing that he was behind their product.

The game itself looks cool, but because of how the developers acted, I will avoid it on principle.

I can appriate that sentiment, for some people (maybe even Jeff Gerstmann) a video game golf is not all that bad. I'm a fan of Hot Shots Golf. I tend not only play the demo over and over again and never buy the games - which is telling itself - but I think Hot Shots was a sweet spot.

But, I see thw developers point of view about what they wnated to make. There is room for all forms abnd views of the 'games of putting balls in holes', even golf that is not golf.

Holy shit this guy can talk...

I won't doubt that it's a great technological achievement to be able to break all these things in so many ways, but as a game it seems quite limited.

During the first shot, you hardly have any control over the ball except to point it at an angle and press the button. Say what you want about golfclubs, at least the idea of swinging a club at a ball feels more impactful than when you just press a button.

The second shot is basically Burnout Crash mode with a ball. It works, but it's not doing anything new.

The third shot seems to be most skillbased, but without knowing how it actually works (beyond ' it's like pool' ) It seems fairly magical. Either you putt the ball in a crazy way or you just whiff it.

And that's it. you did 3 things in 2 minutes of gameplay and you're looking at a loadingscreen.

The destruction has some novelty to it, but once you've seen statues collapse, a pack of milk cartons doesn't really excite me anymore.

Is this a game or a tech demo for UE4 and Nvidia? Their names were dropped a bunch throughout this video as were their respective technologies.

Imho the way they went about this presentation, everything already unlocked, super pro guy playing, made this look like even less of a game than it is. There seem to be quite a bit of progression mechanics in the game, with unlockable special shots and "locked" parts in the levels, but none of them actually show up in this video.

Would maybe have worked better if they started with nothing unlocked, unlock something, and then show how that unlocked special shot allows them to do something fancy new, or open up a new part of a level. As it is, it looks like there's no progression at all and it's just a "score attack" game.

Also: All that "bonus points!" stuff popping up kinda reminded me of a Tony Hawk game or something combo/score heavy like that. And then I had to imagine how awesome it would be to skate a miniature skater trough those environments, breaking up stuff with tricks and shit, I'd certainly play a game like that xD

Sadly I think there might be a lot of reasons to be concerned. If they use a lot of GameWorks stuff for their physics, this might turn out to run very shitty on AMD cards. GameWork physics features are notorious for tanking the FPS, even with Nvidia cards, with AMD cards they usually make the game unplayable.

I had a couple of issues with this one. Why did this need to be called a golf game? What about it has to do with golf other than the ball and ending the level by getting the ball in the hole? The majority of the video is also "Look at this room full of stuff. Watch the dev knock down the stuff. Watch him end the level with a trick shot. Repeat." I also wouldn't have known anything about how you actually play the game if it wasn't for the controls being on the load screens. This doesn't look bad, but it also doesn't look like there's a whole lot to it.

@nethlem said:

Yes, totally. That's why i am a bit concerned.

looks like it will get boring really quickly

@infidel1990: Totally agree on both points.

This looks super fucking boring.

I was kind of excited when I heard about this game and saw some of the early footage...but after this video it looks reallllllly lame. Also on the quick looks with the devs I always wonder what the duders are really thinking because obviously they are not going to start criticizing the game right in front of the devs.

Looks kinda... Meh. Is every level just "tee off, pogo around, aim for the hole" in that order? I don't get the sense that the "tee off" has any real meaning.

I'm not sold, but I'm intrigued.

Designers who can artwork, artworkerers who can design, if that opening UI is anything to go by, perhaps the jack of all trades approach might not be the most (inter)stellar.

GODDAMN I wanted to hear Jeff's Commando anecdote!!

This looks so boring.

Jesus, even Pain had more interactive elements than this.

Edit: I really hope they didn't come down here just to do the EX like they insinuated, hopefully they can get some coverage from other video game sites in the area.)

seems like a tech demo.