![From the Vault #7 Hot Shots Golf Fore! (PS2) – [2022 Archive] Artwork](https://www.buzzsprout.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MTY0OTUzNzM1LCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--cd4af2191a987f10951a9b699e01310f6abf4886/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJmb3JtYXQiOiJqcGciLCJyZXNpemVfdG9fZmlsbCI6WzYwMCw2MDAseyJjcm9wIjoiY2VudHJlIn1dLCJzYXZlciI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2MH0sImNvbG91cnNwYWNlIjoic3JnYiJ9LCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--0b154cb6b88107719b1a277923d35676ba5519cc/jammer.jpg)
Retro Jammers
Join the Retro Jammers: Carter, Jeff, Jerad, and Tanner as we play through retro games weekly and review how they play today. The podcast is designed to be like a book club in which games are chosen and played through. We highly encourage listeners to join in and play along weekly. We also take suggestions for our gaming wheel for the next game we play on Facebook and Twitter. Jam it in!
Retro Jammers
From the Vault #7 Hot Shots Golf Fore! (PS2) – [2022 Archive]
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
From the Vault is our series where we revisit and re-release older episodes from the podcast archive. This episode was originally recorded in 2022 and is now making its return from the vault.
In this episode, Tanner, Carter, and Jerad tee off with Hot Shots Golf Fore! on the PS2, discussing its accessible gameplay, colorful presentation, and the unique charm that helped it stand out among golf games of its era. They dive into the courses, characters, and progression systems while reflecting on what made the series such a fan favorite. The guys also look back on how the game holds up today and why it remains a memorable entry in the Hot Shots Golf franchise.
Welcome back everybody to season five, episode two. Today we're going to be talking about Jared's pick Hotshots Golf 4 on the PS2. Yeah, well where we said that this is our first ever golf game. I want to dive into that a bit where we did that with Blitz for football. Did you boys grow up playing golf at all? Or was you like me and was more of just a putt-putt kid whenever you went to Myrtle Beach every year?
SPEAKER_02I have honestly never really played golf until I was an adult. Yeah. I think it's more of an adult sport anyway, I think. Yeah, I don't really consider myself a golf player even now, even though I like to go. Like it's one of those things where I love to go and play, because even me and I think me and Jared and Jeff went a few times there, or maybe just the one time and I went with Jeff quite a bit. But I don't know, man. It's just it's fun to go out and play, but I'm terrible at it, and I never grew up with it, so that's probably why I'm terrible at it. I mean, it's never a bad time. Like I've never went to the golf course and been like, oh man, this sucks. Not one time I've ever done that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, I have. I've been there and it sucked. But uh everybody's terrible at golf.
SPEAKER_02That's what golf is. It's like the sport that everybody sucks at. What did that guy say? He's like, I've never known a guy who could get good at golf if he only played one time a day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like that little old man saying. But uh I've probably been a total of five times, and I think two of them were with you and Jeff Carter. Maybe three of them out of the five. Yeah. So I'm I'm not a golfer at all. I I'm terrible. It did seem like this last time that I was a shit ton better than the first time I ever went ten years ago. Like, and I don't I don't know why, but yeah, I I the ball was actually getting off the the ground up in the air for some distance. So it starts getting out when you do that.
SPEAKER_02It starts getting a little bit better.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'll take it.
SPEAKER_05It's a sport that I like because it has a lot of randomness to it. It's like every time you go, it's like there's some things you just can't control. Like you can do the best you can and you can get the technique down of hitting the the ball and like knowing the level of the land whenever you're putting and stuff, but there's a lot of like the wind direction and all that stuff. It's there's just some things you can't control with it. Yeah. Uh I've never been golfing before, so next time I come in, let's go. Jeff, you gotta take me, man, because I want to go. It looks yeah, we can do that. We could do that. Absolutely. Y'all get uh a little tipsy before you go, or is you pretty solid?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, beering. Like I'm pretty sure golf's a sport that they encourage you to drink while you play. Like most most golf clubs like sell beer and stuff, so oh hell yeah. Then I'm down. That's good.
SPEAKER_02The kind of sport it is. Maybe that's why it's so much fun.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Because you don't even care how terrible you are at it. Yeah. Yeah. As far as like history with golf goes, I have none, but golf video games I've always loved, even though I hate the sport of golf. I don't hate it, but I'm not good at it, so I guess I don't like it. But I love golf video games. And I think it's because there's like a decent amount of math involved. Like you have to see how far you are, choose the right club, kind of get an idea, like in this game of like the percentage, even though this one makes it a little bit easier than the past games because it shows you where your flag's at.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But in the past, I was always calculating that shit in my head. Like, okay, I'm 60 yards out, and this club hits 120. So as long as there's no wind or elevation, then I need to hit it about 50%. So I've always liked that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02That's a lot about what Tanner was talking about when he mentioned like the randomness of golf, how like in real life you're out there, there's like the elevation of what you're hitting, um, uphill, downhill, the wind, take all that into account, sand traps and all that. Yeah. And they incorporate all that real life stuff into the game pretty well.
SPEAKER_05So, Jared, in the previous hotshots games, they didn't have that flag thing.
SPEAKER_04The flag down near your power gauge. Yeah, no, no, I'm pretty sure on the first hotshots for sure, because that's the one that I first grew up with and know the best, the PS1 version, it definitely doesn't have a flag. Maybe three did, which is the first on PS2, because a lot of people say this game right here is basically just three with a little bit of upgrades.
SPEAKER_05So, yeah, that's that's crazy. That that would be really challenging to do. Like without because I relied heavily on the flag while I was playing it.
SPEAKER_04It makes it easier, but like I said, it's just like a big math game without the flag, which I kind of like.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because like uh I've always loved golf games too. I never really liked sports games growing up, but golf was a big exception. There was a little story I was debating on saying here because it's kind of one of those embarrassing childhood stories, but I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's not that embarrassing, but it's like whenever you're a kid, you can be sort of bratty and just like it entitled, and you know what I mean. But I remember for Christmas, whenever Mario Golf Toadstool Tour came out, that was the one on the GameCube. My grandma, who lives here in Tennessee, bought that for me because she knew I loved Mario and that was a Mario game I didn't have. And I remember getting it for Christmas and being mad. I remember just opening it and just being like, hmm, I don't like this because it's golf and all that stuff. And I remember mom, my mom like bringing me a side being like, Tanner, give it a try. You don't like your grandma bought you this brand new GameCube game. Like, you need to grow the fuck up and and like be thankful for what she got you. And I was just like, okay, okay. So I brought it home and I started playing it, and I fucking loved it. I was like having a blast and all that stuff, and then I apologized to my grandma later about it. And I remember that that game in particular being one that I was just pissed off that I got because it was golf. I'm like, wow, grandma, you don't know me at all. Like that kind of thing. But Jerry, I was gonna ask you, do you remember that Mario Golf game? Or actually on Eisenhower Drive, there's a McDonald's there. And do you remember back all the way until like 2012, they would have a game cube in the back of there, like a like there was a little uh play area for kids, and there was a game cube there until literally like 2012-2013, which fucking blew my mind. Like they never removed it. And that Mario Golf game, yeah, was always the game that was in it. So I would go in there, I would play around the golf.
SPEAKER_04I don't remember that at all. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That was another thing with that Mario Golf game. I was just like, what the fuck? It this GameCube has been out for 12 years at this point, and it's still there. I I it could still be there now because I haven't been in there in years, but that I always remember that being wild. So yeah, so you said this started on Hotshots 1 for you, Jared? Like that was when you got it, was on the PlayStation?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this is uh, and the only reason I had it was my dad. Like, this is one of his games. So like when I was that age, I would say Hotshots One came out in '95, '96, maybe. So as a five or six year old, and especially as more difficult as the first one was, like, I had no interest in it whatsoever. But I would watch my dad play it all the time. I can remember one time we rented Hotshots 3, and we had a blast with it when I was probably 11 or 12. Like I watched my dad just go like heavy into these tournaments. The character he used wasn't on this one, it was some like strong Australian guy from Hotshots 3. But anyway, so he passed away shortly after that, I guess in 2004, and then this game came out the year he passed away a few months later. I don't think I got it initially, but I heavily played. This is probably I said Hotshots 1's my most played. I that's uh that's not true. This is my most played hotshots because I played it all through high school and it had an online mode, which it's probably one of the first of three or four games that I ever played online from a home console, and I would play it all day long, like in these online tournaments against people, which was awesome at the time.
SPEAKER_05Was that how it worked? Like it would put you in a bracket-based tour tournament, or how would it work?
SPEAKER_04It worked just like the tournament mode on this worked, okay. Except everybody else was real, and between courses, like it gave you a certain amount of allotted time between each hole that everybody was playing that first hole and then the second hole and so on and so forth. But like in between courses, like let's say you finished the course a minute before they gave you, you could like chat to everybody. Oh my god, that's awesome, man. Yeah, so you would have like at least 12 to 20 people golfing this one course. And I think they may have had a versus mode too where you could actually golf and see everybody else's character, like whoever you were against, up to four people golfing.
SPEAKER_05That was the one thing, man, because with the new Mario golf game, they wanted to make sure that people weren't bored while you're playing a golf game. So the way that they did it, and I fucking hate it, man. It looks so dumb. Is like whenever everyone's golfing at once and you're like chasing after the ball and you can like tackle each other, and you have to go up to your like you know what I'm you know what I'm saying? Like, because have you played the latest Mario golf game?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've got it. Me and the boys play it every now and then. We haven't played it in a long time. We probably played it three or four times when it first came out. I don't like it as much, but I think I'm just biased towards hot shots.
SPEAKER_05I thought that this game had the perfect balance between cartoony and realistic golf games. Like Mario Golf goes heavily into just these little gimmicks and stuff, which I mean it makes Mario Golf what it is, and and people like it, and I even do too, but this was I think the perfect hybrid of the two. Like a little bit of that Tiger Woods thing and a little bit of that Mario Golf combined. I agree.
SPEAKER_04Like, this is the best golf simulator type game that's dressed as like a friendly, wacky game. Like it combines the best of both.
SPEAKER_02I can definitely get on board with that. It was like a realistic golf, like you actually gotta pay attention and like you can't just go out there and just do whatever. Yeah. But also the characters were more intricate and they're kind of interesting characters instead of just like you know, a regular old like you're picking like a professional golfer or something.
SPEAKER_04Let's let's go into that. Who did you all use?
SPEAKER_05That's the thing with this game. There's a lot of unlockable characters. I think that I've seen that there's 23, which is kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_02Um I was gonna say, Jared said like this was the most played. I'd be like, yeah, definitely. Didn't you have all the characters unlocked? There's one all week and unlocked to nobody.
SPEAKER_04There's one little like character block left that I haven't unlocked yet. I don't know who it is. But what's funny is when I started playing this week, I noticed I had two missing blocks. So I went ahead and went to versus mode and I and I unlocked like some old grandma that can freaking blast the ball. I think her name's Louise. But but as far as characters go, Tanner mentioned to me he thought it was weird who I use. I use Mel, which he's unlockable from the beginning, right? You all could have used him. I think that's why it's just like I chose him to start with, and then I just kept being him because I got used to his draw and like right spin, right? Like it kind of got the ball goes to the right a little bit.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I wrote one of the first PlayStation games, because I I collect PlayStation games, I started back in December. One of the first ones I bought was Hotshot Scolf 2. I bought that in Final Fantasy Tactics. I fucking love that Mel is the mascot of this franchise because he's on the cover of all of them, and they picked the weirdest character to be the mascot of this series. He's like an old flea's ball type of guy who has like a toupee that's constantly falling off, and he's like fat and looks weird. Like I just love that they had the balls to make this type of guy their mascot, not some like normal girl or guy that's just like, you know, the the friendly golfer or whatever. They picked this guy to be the mascot, which I love. It's kind of like Wario in a way. That's what he reminds me of in certain ways. Like kind of, yeah.
SPEAKER_04No, he looks like Wario. He seems like a guy that would like uh be in some type of like shisty sales business, like door-to-door vacuum salesman or something.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that that was uh the the characters of this game were so damn hilarious. Like it was just non-stop. Like I was literally laughing at some of the shit they'd say because I picked Alan a lot, uh, because he was the first character I unlocked. And Alan is like this guy from California who's like very full of himself and like the douchebag type of guy. And he would just say these random things that didn't not pertain to golf at all, and it would be like, I can't afford the car I drive whenever he's like putting off, or uh women hate me, or just random little shit like that. I'm just like it would just catch me on guard and I would start laughing.
SPEAKER_04Male would always talk about food, like you gonna put mayonnaise on that or something, like as you tee off, or and then there was a couple things like when you would choose him as your character, the boys, like my boys, they would watch me play this a bit, so they caught on to like his catchphrases and started saying it. But like every time I'd choose him, he'd be like, Guess you don't care I'm ugly.
SPEAKER_02Even the caddies, they got their own catchphrases, like that lady would be like, I will cook your sausages. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Dave chose uh the English guy. I can't think of his name. The caddy. What's his name? Oh, the English guy, the one that we said that looked like you. Yeah, I think so. Dave called him some actor on our Facebook chat, but said that uh he called him Tubby and it made Dave sad because he missed a putt or something like that.
SPEAKER_05Like literally any character you pick, and they're kind of like um like parodies of real life types, I've noticed. Like the Allen guy's kind of like your typical douchebag guy who's like narcissistic and really full of himself, and they're kind of poking fun at that. One thing on the back of the box, which is crazy, we were talking about the realistic physics. It literally says the main bullet point of the game realistic physics plus humorous golf antics, the perfect formula. So that's literally what they're going for. Like they want to go for these humorous characters with realistic golf, which I'm all for.
SPEAKER_02It made like both worlds for me. I like that you pronounced it formula.
SPEAKER_05Is capitalized F-O-R-E. Perfect. Even the game title is Hotshots Golf. For more characters, courses, and features than ever before.
SPEAKER_02So good stuff.
SPEAKER_05I know, these little fucking puns and shit. But yeah, so what did you all think of the gameplay of the game? Like, I mean, this is a golf game, so I mean, we know what we were getting ourselves into, but I think honestly, that the golfing in this game has not aged at all. I think it's like almost perfect. And this is this game was released in 2004.
SPEAKER_02Four, which uh blurred my mind. Good job, Danner. Way to pun that in. The controls are amazing. Like, even now, it's like I'm like, I really can't find a way for them to improve upon it. I mean, even if you wanted to get more intricate, I feel like it would make it less fun, if that makes sense. Like if they were to you know add a bunch of different elements, like like a to a professional golf game, I guess. I don't think it would be as fun. Like, I think this hit the line perfect. Like, I could play it right now and have a good time with it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. Like, there's not much more they can do, and I'm pretty sure you'll probably know this better than me, Carter. There were a couple more released titles of this in the future before this latest one. I think there was one on Vita and one or two on PS3.
SPEAKER_05Carter's got a boner from that.
SPEAKER_04From the Vita. I knew there was a Vita version.
SPEAKER_02Uh Vita's golf or something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and that's what they changed the name to because that's what it was in Japan. They kind of got rid of the hot shots, so it's everybody's golf now. And like you all said, the golfing is still very similar. What they've tried to do is make it more of like a career mode where you make yourself into this wacky type character. And I don't like that as much. I kind of like I like having a huge roster like they had of just different characters that you unlock throughout playing. But this one, like they're heavy on like the online scene where you're like walking around a golf course and there's tons of people. But if you go on there now, it's just a bunch of like people with the most random builds of themselves, and they're like angels flying in the sky, or like a little tiny person that's like six inches tall, and they're like gathered around beside the first hole, like just typing to each other. They're not even golfing anymore. It's these these Fortnite kids.
SPEAKER_05The characters look so generic on it. It looks like Miis or like Avatars or something like that.
SPEAKER_04It looks like the the old Xbox 360 Connect, or not even Connect, but the little characters you'd make on that. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is 100%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The character design in this is great. Like, I think like to answer your question earlier, Jared, my favorite character was Rufus. He's like this little dog that you play as Regis, Regis. Regis. My bad. I thought it was Rufus.
SPEAKER_04Rufus is a better. Rufus is a better dog name, but yeah, this guy's Revis. Or Regis.
SPEAKER_05I don't think I'm Rufus. Yeah, he was my favorite character. And like yeah, because all of them were unique and they stood out. And you could even unlock tons of skins for him, too. Now, how did that work, Jared? Was it the more that you play the characters you unlock the skins, or do you uh buy it with the currency that you get in the game?
SPEAKER_04No, I'm pretty sure it's like you said, the more you play with a character, you'll develop a bond with them. Like there's a little heart beside of each character's name.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was wondering what that was because I got up, because I played with Mike all the time because I got used to that left like curve of his. Uh-huh. I kind of played with him all the time, and it like gave a heart and said like character loyalty or something like that. Yes was how you unlock more stuff for him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that's how you do it, but I have all the outfits unlocked for male, and I have basically none for everybody else. Like I have no heart with everybody else on that game.
SPEAKER_02I'd say you do, because you got 11 under with him. I was like, holy shit, that's an 18 cores or 18 whole cores, and he got 11 under.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was I'm telling you, back in the day, I would I'd say I'm a little bit better now than I was in 2005, 2006, 2007-ish when I was playing this online, just because I I guess I've continued to play these types of games, but I would get my ass smoked online for the most part. Oh, I'm sure. I would finish top five every now and then, like if I had a really good round, but you would have some people that would eagle and birdie every hole. Like every par five is a guaranteed eagle, every other hole is a guaranteed bird birdie, if not a hole in one on like a par three.
SPEAKER_02Hey, I got one hole in one and it made me feel really good. Really? Yeah. Got one hole in one, it was pretty cool. Mike knocks it in that and it does the whole like flowers or something like that all over the screen, and it kind of changes color and everybody's cheering, and it felt awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool to see. Um, was it on the par three course or just a regular course? It was one of the rounds that I posted where I got like only like a two or a three under the for the course, but I did get a hole in one, so that was pretty cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I was asking, was it on the all par three course, like the nine-hole par three for fun? Oh, no, no, no. It was on a real course. Yeah. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_05Good job, Carter. Like there's a ton of unlockables in this game. Like you can unlock different caddies, even. I think that they said there's up to ten caddies, which uh there are some Sony characters in this game because two of the caddies you can get are uh Clank from Ratchet and Clank and Daxter from Jack and Daxter. And you can also get Ratchet and Jack as actual golfers, which is cool.
SPEAKER_04I'm pretty sure Ratchet is the only golfer that I'm missing of having everybody unlocked. I don't think I have him.
SPEAKER_05Well, another cool thing, and this was only in the Japanese release, you could get an ape from Ape Escape as your caddy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like if you would go through and look at all the characters, like a list of them, it's funny. Like, some are staggered to just be Europe and North American. Some are just North American Japan, some are Japan only. Like, there's literally probably 50 total characters for this game, but they decided to just do like 23 or 24 like for each.
SPEAKER_05That is weird that they didn't just uh add them all to each version. Like a ton of content.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you ought to see maybe so. That's what I was thinking. Maybe a limitation on like data, but you should see um Regis, the one that you like, has like a version in Japan and it's just called doggy. And he looks a lot more plain and weird. Like he doesn't like he looks like a generic dog instead of like a human face.
SPEAKER_05Like a he looks like a bulldog in this version.
SPEAKER_04Are you able to Google right now? I want you to see this picture of just doggy. Like it's so weird because he's he's more humanized in the American version, but the Japanese version, he's literally like a dog's face.
SPEAKER_02From like Nintendo dogs. I was gonna say that looks just like someone took a picture of a dog and crudely pasted it into the game.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that is fucking wild, man. That looks like an Animal Crossing character almost. Like bizarre. You can unlock the caddies and stuff. So did you all have a favorite caddy that you had? Mine was by far Bertha. And she's North American only.
SPEAKER_02Bertha is. Oh, okay. I'd say Bertha probably stuck out the most just because she would crack me up and she goes, I'm gonna cook your sausages. It's okay, honey.
SPEAKER_05And Jared, I'm sure you have more unlocked, so what was your favorite?
SPEAKER_04I have four or five. This is gonna make me sound like a pervert, but I used the hot, like British maid. Uh her name's Sophie. You can look her up, but like she's always like, uh I don't know if I want to look her up, Jared. I love uh if you get a birdie, she's like, and you know, you can't get away with this stuff anymore, but she's like, Thanks for giving me the bird.
SPEAKER_05Especially not in the newest everybody's golf where they're trying to like just make it more kid friendly, I guess.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but like, yeah, a lot of stuff she says, there's a few little innuendos there, but I'm looking right now at the Japanese only or Japan only caddy. It's like a grandmother. That's I guess their version of Bertha, but it's like a traditional like Asian Japanese grandmother. Oh, your caddy, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, like I mean, like we were talking, like this game obviously has like your classic golf courses and tournaments and stuff like that, but also has mini golf too, which is uh super fun. I love playing that, Derek, because for the last day you you chose mini golf for us to play. On the back of this thing, um, it says the unfortunate. Unforgettable miniature golf returns. What was it in before? Was it in the first game?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I know it was in one, but in one it was played like traditional mini golf. Like you keep regular golf as well. You keep track of how many strokes it takes you to get in the hole. But like here, it's a really weird version of mini golf where the longer it takes you to get the ball in the hole, the more points you get. These courses have like crazy amounts of like different pathways you can take to get a hole in one, but you have to try to come up with and construct the best way to take a the longest to get there. So a little unique and cool.
SPEAKER_05Like the the mini golf courses on this were insane. Like they were just like crazy layouts and stuff. Where is it was it like that or was it more just traditional?
SPEAKER_04It was more traditional. I mean the layouts were cool, but they were very plain. They didn't have like, and that's probably just a limitation of the PS1 and the time, but like they were super plain. This one, like you said, they're crazy. They'll have like little ditches that you could hit it off a wall and then get the ball in there and go a certain way. I found a crazy, like, secret hole in the back of a mountain that I never knew existed until I accidentally like seen it and I went back and replayed it. And you're able to hit, I forget which one, which course it is, but you hit it through, and you can, if you aim it just right, you can get it through the back of this mountain and it'll loop around through like something that's not even on the course and come back in and go in the hole.
SPEAKER_02That's cool. Was there a way to set the holes where they're not like gargantuan? No, and I think that's part of it.
SPEAKER_04That's like their thing is like they want you to get a hole in one, but they want you to find the you know the longest way to it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Like, I mean, this game was pretty much flawless. Like for a PS2 golf game, I mean, this is as good as it gets, but did you all have any complaints with this at all? Because I'm kind of struggling to think of any. That that's me.
SPEAKER_04Like when when it comes to score time, I've already thought like it's either do you like golf games, then this is for you. Yeah, this is for you. I don't know how to pick a con, other than I guess you could say, uh I wouldn't even say a lack of content, like, because there's tons of characters.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I'm not dumb. I know we've said this a lot in the past, like, oh, I'll go back to that game. I'm 1,000% going back to this game. Like, I barely even scratch the surface in terms of unlockables, and I want to unlock it all at some point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, replayability is so high on this game. Like, I wish there was like trophies involved as well.
SPEAKER_05Because then it would be like the aspect of the golfers. I think that's an incredible way of getting like unlock, and that's just for the cosmetics of the each individual golfers. Like we said, like the the better you do in the tournaments and stuff, you unlock points where you can spend money on new clubs, golf balls, like new caddies, and all that kind of stuff. It just there's so much to do and unlock on this game. I was having a blast. I was like, man, I wish this there was like a remastered version of this on the PlayStation 4 or 5. Like I would love to play this.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, if there was like a if the new everybody golfs were similar to this, which I guess they're not, I don't say I could set, I would go as far to set up a channel just so we could meet up and play that online.
SPEAKER_03That's how much fun I had with that. Me and Tanner, I'm pretty sure when it first came out, didn't you get it, Tanner? We played online.
SPEAKER_05We played uh uh quite a bit there for a while. It was okay. It's it's already shutting down its servers next month. Uh uh. Yeah, next month. September whenever the the servers are shutting down on it. So I guess it didn't do as well.
SPEAKER_04I had a buddy from PT school, like just now bought it, and we've played online with another buddy of ours like two or three weeks ago on a weekend, like played a around, and this guy is like a crazy good golfer in real life. He's good at everything he does. And like literally his first round, he went like four over, or I don't know. He didn't score that great. The second round, he scored right with me, and we're just freaking out. Like, he picks up on shit so quick. But um, I was gonna ask you all, what do you think about the music and sound effects? Like, I love that shit too. I can hear Hotshots 1, like the even the menu music right now in my head today. It's so good. And back to your point, how you kind of brought up some Mario Sports, Mario Golf, the same like publisher or producer, I you know that I never get that shit right, but like um their the company was Camelot. They worked on Hotshots 1, like the original one, and Mario Golf. And you can hear like on the N64 version, it's the same sound effects and everything. Like oh really? Yeah, and I never knew that until like here recently where Switch brought that hot or Mario Golf to the classics. Like I started playing it and I was like, this literally like it was bringing back memories from Hotshots Golf, just their music and their the sound effects are 100% identical, and that's because they help make both games.
SPEAKER_05They probably had them assets and like, well, there's no point making new ones.
SPEAKER_04Let's just Yeah, no, no, let's just roll with it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like in the courses, like do you get three to unlock, and I didn't unlock a single extra course because I remember Jared, whenever you was doing your little daily post, you'll you were like, Tanner, check and see what courses we can do, because we want to make sure everyone gets in on this. And I had a fucking blast with just those three courses this week, and I didn't unlock a single one. And there's 12 in total, which is a ton. And you can change the seasons on all of them, like whatever you're feeling, like hey, I've I'm feeling like playing winter this time, and you can like change the aesthetic of the course, and even like I guess weather effects, like if you're playing on spring, it'll probably rain more than it would in winter time.
SPEAKER_02So there's so much replayability to it, and I think we're never talking about negative. I think uh I got frustrated a few times when I was playing through it, and then um, and it was just because I was not paying or I didn't know to look. I guess that's what you read the manuals for for some things, but like you know how you can see the elevation and it comes up. I was like taking that into account for stuff like putting, like obviously. But well, I would like aim at the flag and I would hit it, and I would be like, Oh, why are they not cheering for me? That was perfect. And then I would get in the water hazard. I'm like, what the fuck? I went past the flag and I still landed in the water and there's no wind. And then Jared was like, Oh, you gotta look at elevation too. And I was like, even on teeing off, then I started paying attention to it, and I was like, Oh, okay. And then I figured that out, and then that kind of quit being a complaint. Yeah, yeah. That's I was mad about it, and then when I looked it up, I was like, Oh, okay, that makes sense. And then when I looked in, I was like, Oh, obviously, Matt.
SPEAKER_04That's why I love it right there, man. Like uh, you have to take into account everything. If it's raining a little bit, you know the ball's not going to travel as far, even on the green button, the wind, the elevation, and then you put it all together and hope you hit X at the right time throughout those last two strokes. But um, great game. I love hot shots, man. I uh this is my favorite one, I'm pretty sure. Everybody's golf is good. The newest one on PS4. Yeah. I could still play it with you all if you all wanted to. Right now, I'd jump on and play around. But this one is more, I don't know, it's the most solid version.
SPEAKER_05It doesn't have nearly the amount of personality this one has. This one's really fucking like busting to the brim with personality. Like every character is hilarious. Even like the like for the gameplay itself, like, yeah, it's traditional golf, but they even add a little bit here and there to where it's more cartoony and there's a little bit more strategy. Like you can hit square and do those huge power hits where the ball like catches on fire and it goes farther. And like there's one thing I didn't do because I didn't understand it, but I know whenever you uh hit the ball and it lands in the green, like near the hole, you can like hit the D-pad to make it like do a little spin, like a little fire spin and move. You know what I'm saying? Like if you hold back the D-pad, it will how do you how do you do that, Jared? Like, is that before you hit the ball?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you have to do it before, and okay, so you press X three times, right? One to start your swing, one to set the power, and one to set the impact or accuracy, right? Yep, yep. You can do different things, like you can set what they call, I guess, what I call like mega spins. If you hold, like, let's say you want a backspin on it, you want it to come back. You can do the traditional just hold down the D pad all the way through after you press the first X to start your stroke, you can do that. Or you can press X to start the swing, hold up, and then press the second X, and then hold back as you set your impact or the last X, and it will give you like a super version of like a back spin. All those spins, yeah, all those spins you do like can be like heavily done if you do the opposite way you want first. See, a lot of times on courses, if they have certain bends like left or right, or you're going around a tree or a mountain, I'll set like a sideways spin on it. Like so I'll let's say I want it to curve left and come back. Yeah, I'll hold right through the first two X's and then left before I hit the last X, and it will give you like a awesome ass like hook or draw or whatever they're called in real golf.
SPEAKER_05Fuck, man. You're making me want to play this again. Okay, like I had so much damn fun with this. Let's go ahead and hop into our scores, and and I'm gonna be giving it a high one. Alrighty, Jared. You're up.
SPEAKER_04Like I said, like I feel bad giving it a great score, but as far as golf games go, like this is this is top of the line to me. We've already mentioned, like, you know, it's got a perfect mix. It's physics and stuff are excellent as far as golf games go. And then you got that cartoony wackiness. I think it's a great game that even if you're brand new to golf games, like you're gonna really get into this and then start to unlock people, and you get better and you get better characters, and it's just gonna build on and you'll have a ton of fun with this. And and then once you get great, if you're experienced at golf games, it's still like a great time because you're always gonna compete against yourself and what you've done in the past. As far as cons go, we tried to think of some a while ago. I guess if like you're kind of turned off by the an overdose of wackiness in the characters, I don't know. Maybe a lack of an actual career mode, like you don't get to like pick a guy and go through like multiple, which you do do that, but you're not like building towards something as the same profile or person the whole time. Right. I don't know. I'm I'm grasping at straws for some cons. I'm gonna give it a solid 9.0 sports game.
SPEAKER_05I think that's fair. Like if you're factoring in golf games as a whole, like this is probably a 9.0, but yeah, like as you said, this game graphically looks incredible for a PS2 game. The music was super memorable, the characters were hilarious. They didn't feel like cartoon characters per se. I feel like we keep saying that, like they're cartoon characters. They even felt kind of like I think even adults can laugh at these characters because they they're making fun of real stereotypes in real life that you know. Oh yeah. And it's just it's funny. And they that they sometimes do these little innuendos, like Jared was saying, that makes it hilarious. There's a lot of different little variety to the game mode. So if you're getting bored of just the traditional golfing, you can do the mini golf, which is a little bit more archaic and it's a little bit more for that crowd. You can get attached to these characters and and unlock different costumes for them. There's just a ton to do in this game, and I had a fucking blast with it. I'm gonna get an 8.5. This is probably the best golf game I've ever played in my life. And it's a PS2 game from 2004. Like, that's insane. And but it honestly does not feel like it's from 2004. It could be from 2012. But yeah, great game.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, you all pretty much touched on everything. Uh graphics are good, music's good, characters are great. Um, it's golf, it's fun, and it is just straight golf. There's some more stuff that I found out on this podcast that I didn't know about, you know, like making the ball spin and things like that. So yeah, I definitely recommend everybody go out and play this one. Um, I'm probably gonna play it even though I don't have to anymore. I played it for the podcast and I still want to go back and play it. I think, like I said, the only thing I ever got frustrated on, I figured out, so I no longer got frustrated with it, because it's just like if you mess up, you mess up. It's not really it messing you up, if that makes sense. It doesn't cheat you. Yeah, I think the only thing is like I was like, if you start an 18-round of golf, you're gonna be there for the full 18 rounds. It's 30 minutes, um, or at least 30 minutes for me anyway. You can probably speed it up and get through a little bit quicker. But I mean, if you don't want to play that long, they got nine rounds you can do. They got putt putt. I mean, there's a ton you can do to this game. So yeah, it's hard to really complain about this one. I just rated it on base of how much fun I had with it, and I pretty much got it as an eight out of ten, so eight point zero, because I mean it was a fun game. I had a good time. Um I'm not the biggest golf fan in the world. I mean, in real life I like to play probably more than you both do. But um, as far as the games go, I'm not the biggest like into like setting it up, taking your time to set up the perfect shot and hitting it. I'm just like, I don't I'm not as big into it as you all, but as far as a golf game goes, though, it's not going to get much better than this. So yeah, 8.0 out of 10.
SPEAKER_05So we're in 8.5. I can do the math on that one.
SPEAKER_04Real quick before we move on to the spin, I just had a memory pop into my head as we were talking about characters and the sound effects and like just their wackiness and stuff. I'll never forget, like, so the years probably 2002, 2003, and like I said, me and my dad rented Hotshots 3. So I'm watching him go through this tournament, and this was before he unlocked the big, like, strong Australian guy that could drive it crazy amounts. He was playing as Mel, like, because it's just popped into my head, like I can remember it like it's yesterday. It's a par four, and he drives, he's got a good drive, you know, gets a hundred some yards away from the the hole on this first hit. His second hit, he hits it. Maybe Mel was the caddy. Mel was involved in this, but anyway, he hits it, and before, as the ball's in the air, either Mel goes, whether he's the golfer or the caddy, he goes, I'll be dag dong ding-dong darn. Like exactly like that, and the ball like rolls in. And my dad's like, dude, he looks at me, he's like, dude, first of all, he's pumped about the shot. He was like, the game is programmed like it already knew it was going in before it went in. Like that was some like, I don't know, something revealed to us that the game knew. That was just funny. I love that, man.
SPEAKER_05So he he was blown away that the programmers put that into where like it knew that it was gonna go in, so he was just like losing his mind about it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's he didn't care that he just hit some crazy ass eagle on a par four. He just looks at me and he's like, dude, they must like the game already knew that that was going in for that guy to say that. And I was like, Yeah, I was just laughing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's only like that kind of amazement that can happen back then. Like that nowadays people can't be so much impressed with anymore. But back then, that little things like that would be like, wow.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Yeah, people that's just a given nowadays. Like, people like you don't even process that or think about it. But back then, he like that was like a revelation to him to like find that out.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I love that story, man. That's cool. But yeah, man, I guess uh well, it was great with hot shots, 8.5. Great ass game. I really think that people out there, even if you're not into golf, should should try this. I got it for literally eight dollars. I mean, it's cheap. Yeah, it's a cheap game. I got it for seven, I think. So it's you can get countless hours of fun with this. One last thing, Jared. Is this only two player where it's like PS2 only has two controller ports? No, no, I'm pretty sure you can play with four. I haven't like tried it. You passed the controller around like that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, one or two at a time.
SPEAKER_04We played this. I didn't get into my history with it as much, but we used to play this coming home from school in high school because I can remember me, maybe even Carter. I can remember DJ Shorter 100% playing it with me because he would always choose Regis, the dog.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Good, good pick, Carter. Or shorter. But yeah, man, I guess moving on, we're going on to the next sports game. Um, we got eight now. So this is what we got. We got Jared's other pick, NFL 2K5 on the PS2, my other pick, Harry Potter Quitted's World Cup on the GameCube or PS2, Carter's picks, Top Gear on the Super Nintendo, and NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, Backyard Baseball from Watch, Real Fishing from Mitchell Cook, Mike Tyson's punch out from Dave Mathis, and NBA courtside from Caleb Cook.
SPEAKER_02Alrighty, guys. Okay, before you spin, I look uh I did this old school. I grabbed the game case for Hotshots Golf 4, um, multi-tap for PS2, one to four players, or just one to four players sharing the controller. So you can play it one to four players that way. Just I was like, hey, let me just grab the case.
SPEAKER_05I knew that the PS1 had the multi-tap, it looks like a boomerang, but I wasn't sure about the PS2. I couldn't remember. But yeah, okay, cool. All right, here we go, guys. Three, two, one. Real fishing, Mitchell Cook.
SPEAKER_04Nice. Nice.
SPEAKER_05Natsumi, don't let me down, motherfuckers. I'm tired of giving you all shitty scores. We won a good fucking Natsumi game. Can you do it one time, please?
SPEAKER_02No, this was back in this was back in their time. This is okay. This isn't a new one. Okay.
SPEAKER_04This is in their prime, yeah. Yeah, this is when they were spitting out Harvest Moon 64, Harvest Moon back to Nature. They were in their prime.
SPEAKER_05Pre-drugs here. So I'm I'm expecting good shit here. Alrighty, guys. So yeah, this will be our second fishing game. I'm really excited for this. Uh, real fishing was a big pile of shit. So this one should. I mean, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_02Real fishing is what we're playing.
SPEAKER_05Not real fishing, my bad, my bad.
SPEAKER_02River King was a big pile of shit.
SPEAKER_05This one I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02I'll let you know when I complete it.
SPEAKER_04Grab your poles, boys. Let's do it.