EVERYBODY'S GOLF HOT SHOTS

TL;DR: The game is great. Let me preface this by saying I have not played a Hot Shots game since Hot Shots 3 on my PS2. However, I have over 70 hours in EA Sports PGA Tour and PGA Tour 2K23, so I’m not exactly a newbie when it comes to video game golf, and believe me when I tell you, this game is quality golf. Now, I don’t know about everyone else, but when I see “Mixed” as the score, I’m hesitant. Therefore, I wanted to touch on some of the negative aspects that people bring up that I don’t agree with. - “The voices are annoying.” Yeah, I really don’t get this one. I think part of the charm of this game is the different characters and their personality. Sure, they talk a lot, but I think it adds to the game rather than detract. - “The characters are bland.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. Every character has their own distinct personality, on the course, and most importantly, in the World Tour mode. Every character has their own short story mode, which is a great way to showcase their personality as well as appearances in others’ story modes, leading the game to feel like a huge community of characters. I feel like I am really getting to know each of these golfers. - “The characters suck when you first unlock them.” Yes and no. This game has a pretty unique levelling system. The only way to level stats is to eat food which can be bought and unlocked as you play the game. This means that if you have been playing the game, you will naturally have money, which you can then spend on food to increase any character’s stats. It has gotten to a point where if I unlock a character, the first thing I do is buy food to increase their stats. I own characters I have never touched that can shoot 280 yards because I preemptively increased their stats with food beforehand. Now that being said, there is a stat cap that is unlocked when a character reaches Lvl. 41. This is not necessary in my experience. Unlocking the cap allows characters to shoot ludicrous distances and aim for the green on Par 4s. I want to make one thing clear: this is not necessary. Characters are perfectly capable without the cap unlocked provided you boost their stats a bit first, at least in single player. - “It’s grindy to level characters.” I forget who it was but I believe someone did the math on how many holes you would have to play to level a character all the way up to Lv. 50. They said you would need to play 300 holes, which sounds like a lot, but a golf course is 18 holes. That’s 17 rounds of golf (rounded up). Now, coming from the past 2 PGA games, that’s not even close to the amount of events in the PGA Tour, let alone if you are playing multiple days, and these rounds are fast. Granted, if you want to level all 30 characters, that’s 510 rounds, but that’s for the completionists out there. If you are just a casual player such as myself, you’ll find a few characters you like and max them just by playing normally. You don’t need to level your characters anyway. I’d describe the benefits you get as helpful but unnecessary. Achieving level 8 gets you access to the special shots. These allow such benefits as a higher chip success and hitting a bit harder out of the rough. Useful, yes. Required, no. This is about how it goes with the rest of the benefits. They help, but you don’t need them to play. That being said, what is the issue here? To level characters, you need to play the game? I saw people online complaining that they took out the exploits and that you need to get the ball in the hole instead of giving up the first chance you get. If you’re the type of person that would like to actually play the game you’ve purchased, you’ll be fine. - “The camera angles are awkward.” Yeah, they are a bit weird when you are trying to use an overhead view. There’s no free camera mode and when using an approach shot, the camera faces toward the player instead of away, so you need to move the camera forward to rotate it around the hole. However, it’s manageable. - “CPUs suck in scramble play.” I feel like this is all about how you view scramble challenges. There’s actually a line in the story mode that perfectly sums up how I view them. “A scramble with the reporter? So, it’s a handicap match, then.” This is played for laughs, but that is in essence how these work. In general, they’re not winging them off into the woods or the water, but they aren’t going to make great shots most of the time. It is up to you to pick up the slack. Want your partner to make a birdie putt? You better hit it real close. If it’s any consolation, your opponents are also pretty bad, so it’s ultimately a wash. - “The CPUs take half a minute to take their turn.” Maybe it was patched out but this isn’t true. They usually go immediately, and if they do wait, which happens very rarely, it’s for 12 seconds at most. Plus, if they wait they’re usually going to do something stupid which means a free win in one of the holes, not to mention it’s going to be funny. - “The physics are wrong.” I bought this game in the spring of 2026, so I believe the game to be patched because the physics are fine. I have been playing for 26 hours and I have yet to encounter a single glitch. - “You can only play as two characters at the start.” This is the main thing I love about this game. You need to unlock everything. There are 30 characters and you need to unlock 28 of them. It’s fun playing through both the World Tour and the Challenge Mode and there’s a bit of extra excitement when you unlock characters and caddies after winning a level. If you want to play with someone, I recommend doing the single player modes taking turns with the other person every shot. - “The graphics are bad.” I mean, there’s certainly better looking games out there, but for me, it certainly doesn’t look bad. It’s fine for what it is. The bottom line is, the core golf is good, and that’s all I really want out of a golf game. I understand maybe it’s not as good as the previous title, but I’ve never played the previous title. If you are looking for a fun arcade-style golf game on Steam, look no further. This is it.