Mostly Normal Monthly #0011, July 2021
Rushing to Finish golfing, Game Pass games, and this newsletter!
Is Mario Golf: Super Rush Too Short?
An investigation by A.J. Eide
Some gamers feel Nintendo’s latest sports adventure comes up short for solo play.
Nintendo has a knack for amazing gameplay. This is proven time and time again with their main stay titles. But are they are starting to get a reputation for coming up a bit short on their promises? Some would say that some of their more recent titles suffer from a “good enough” mentality instead of a fully fledged out experience. The fact that they still charge a full 60 dollars for a title that is just good enough has this writer raising an eyebrow.
Before I start sounding like Negatron I must confess I had and still have a lot of fun playing Mario Golf. It provides several different games modes including Adventure Golf which is a campaign mode that you can play with your Mii character, the classic mode Nintendo calls Standard Golf, Speed Golf, Battle Golf, and Network play. Which, is all of those except Adventure Mode online against other players or friends.
Standard golf is the classic mode. You take turns hitting the ball and you can either do stroke play or match play. I had a lot of fun playing this on the couch while watching TV. My significant other and I could just pass the Switch back an forth with some relaxing play.
Then there is the amazingly fun and chaotic Speed Golf which is all four players are hitting their ball at the same time, racing to see who can make their ball in the hole the fastest and with the least amount of strokes. This is my favorite mode because the different characters have different special shots. For example Bowser has a bomb ball, so if there are a few people on the green you can land your ball and knock them all off the putting service. Very evil, very satisfying.
Battle Golf is a combination of capture the flag and speed golf where all the players race to see who can “win” the most holes by putting their ball through first. Stroke count doesn’t matter as much as a solid strategy to set you up for the next hole.
Adventure Golf is where this game falls a bit short and also the part I was the most excited about so keep that in mind when reading my thoughts. It was a fun but was more like a tutorial than a campaign mode which is great if you’re just learning to play but I was looking for more. By the time the game taught me all of the different shots and ways to spin the ball we were already facing a pretty cool boss. All of the boss fights in this game are pretty fun but not very challenging which I why I thought there was more to come. After beating this cool boss which was a tiny bit more challenging the credits rolled and I was left with a feeling of incompleteness. Where were the one on one battles climbing the ranks against all the other characters? Where was the grand championship? They end the campaign telling you how they are excited you can now play battle golf but then they don’t include battle golf the campaign just ends.
For the most part, I enjoy my time with Mario Golf: Super Rush and I would recommend this game to the person who has roommates, siblings, or a dedicated in-person gaming group to play with. I cannot however, disagree with the current 72 rating it is sitting at on Metacritic as of this write up and it’s a bit disappointing because the game had the potential to be in the 90s easily. Maybe wait for a sale to pick up whit one. It’s still fun to play a round with a friend though so I’ll see you out on the links if an when you get there.
The Netflixification of Games
By Chris Stern
All the best and worst features of scrolling through infinite content.
The Subscription Service Future is finally here, and Microsoft’s Game Pass Ultimate is a deal that is almost to good to pass up. One low-ish monthly payment gives subscribers access to a catalogue of hundreds of rotating games on three different platforms, as well as a huge catalogue of EA’s games via EA Play. Every Xbox, PC, and Mobile Device is now your gateway into a Las Vegas buffet of almost infinite flavors of indies, Xbox first party games, and sports and multi-player fare.
My Xbox’s SSD is chock full of games with the Game Pass logo in the corner, tempting me with access to the “Oh yeah! I heard this was really great. I should check it out sometime soon.”-tier of titles that I’d normally try to pick up when they’re on sale on Nintendo Switch.
Sadly, the mountain of choice has been a bit paralyzing for me. Some nights I just turn my Xbox on, add a few games to the “Play Later” list, and then switch to watching YouTube or HBO Max for the rest of the night. My brain gets overwhelmed by the number of options and just gives up. I end up scrolling through the Xbox dashboard just like Netflix. Always saying “Oh yeah! I heard this was really great. I should check it out sometime soon,” but never quite pressing the play button.
Unluckily for me, the two games I have dipped my toes into recently will both have vanished from the service by the end of this week. Outer Wilds and CrossCode both grabbed my attention, but I dragged my feet and let them sit on my home screen for months before giving them a try. All of a sudden, a Tweet from Xbox Game Pass tells me that they’re leaving town soon. My time in those worlds ended up serving much like a demo, the chance to try before I buy has been missing from most games since they stopped requiring Xbox Arcade titles to have a free Demo after the Xbox 360. Now having gotten through the 1st chapter of CrossCode, I have the game locked into my sights for the next time it goes on sale on the Switch… Those wicked fast load times on my Series X were awfully nice though.