Just Golfing Around
After reading my most recent post, my sole reader reached out and suggested playing Counterstrike. To make a long story short, we both sucked really bad at it. I had never played CS before then. True to the CS experience, in my very first multiplayer match ever with random players, one player on our team started the game by saying a bunch of slurs on mic. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. At least the game lets you mute everyone, including team members.
With that said, CS is pretty fun. I think we’ll have to wrangle up a full crew before being able to make a decent go of it. It’s primarily a team game, after all. Probably also help if I practiced the basics of multiplayer first-person shooters, a genre that I’ve never spent much time in.
A couple of matches later, we thought for a bit about what other multiplayer games we both had in our Steam libraries. There weren’t that many. I still need to go back and mess around with Red Alert 2 to get it working better on the Steam Deck. Performance is pretty bad without fine-tuning.
I started browsing Steam Database’s list of currently popular multiplayer games. One caught my eye: Super Battle Golf. My sole reader would be the first to tell you that they don’t like golf, mini or otherwise. Yet they quickly bought two copies and we were off to the races.
SBG is a golf game, sure, but play is simultaneous and chaotic. The first player to sink their ball in the hole gets the most points for that round. Up to eight players can play together. There are item boxes à la Super Mario Kart strewn about each stage. The item received depends on a player’s distance from their ball, other players, and the hole. Items include mines, single-shot pistols, and cups of coffee. Hitting a player in any way gives a temporary speed boost, encouraging violence.
What more could you ask for?
I’ve only played for about five hours (three of which were all on that first day), and the game is a solid time with friends. I’ve yet to try playing with random folks, but I’ve heard some positive stories so far.
According to the developers, the game was made in four and a half months. They’ve announced that the game already sold over 100,000 copies. They’re working on another biome with 9 new holes, more items, and more cosmetics. Further down the line they plan to add Steam Workshop support.
The single-player experience is only okay. The golf mechanics feel fine. Anyone interested in trying SBG should recognize that it’s a multiplayer game first and foremost.
