Hello and Happy New Year - is it okay to say that now? I'm not sure where the cut-off point is. Some people still have their Christmas trees up. We had ours out before New Year. Welcome back to What We've Been Playing! Or as I like to call this particular edition of it: What We Played Over Christmas, because it's been a couple of weeks since we've talked.
HIGH It’s a new Everybody’s Golf on multiple platforms! Yay!
LOW It’s a low-effort Everybody’s Golf on multiple platforms. Gah.
WTF Why does the thirteen-year-old Vita version look better than this?
Ah, Golf. The age-old sport of smashing a tiny ball with a club so that it flies hundreds of yards towards a hole the size of someone’s fist, avoiding sand traps and rough patches of grass along the way. Brilliant! And given its simplicity, an absolutely perfect fit for videogames. Green grass, blue skies, nerve-wracking shots across an undulating green… a good golf title is a thing of beauty, and few come close to the Everybody’s Golf experience.
For those not familiar with the franchise, it’s basically far and away the best golf series in the world. Sure, this may be my subjective opinion rather than an established, concrete fact, but it takes such a cheerful and personality-driven approach to characters and presentation that it’s easy for even the most golf-agnostic player to get lured in and sideswiped by the depth of its gameplay systems and breadth of things to unlock.
Up until now the series has been exclusive to Playstation consoles, with all but one previous entry developed by the talented Clap Hanz studio. Now Bandai Namco and HYDE have taken the reins, released it on every modern platform (aside from Xbox for whatever reason) and… well, results are mixed, unfortunately.
First, the good.
For the most part it plays well, with the traditional ‘three-tap’ approach to smacking the ball up the fairway. Select a club, tap a button to start the swing gauge, tap it again to set power and then one last time to set the impact angle. Spin, fade and other technical tomfoolery can be applied during this process to help direct it into the hole, as well as various special moves once unlocked – a Rising Shot will blast up the flagpole before dropping into the hole, for example, or a Super Spin will spiral around it in an unrealistic but visually pleasing flourish.
While only two characters are available at the start, it isn’t long before a bunch of anime golfers are available via their story modes, and they all have quirks which can affect gameplay. Some may favor playing at night or in the early morning, leading to easier or harder shot timing depending on the time of day. Some may enjoy playing in the rain or hate taking tee shots on longer courses, others may have their shots naturally soar higher than others to avoid obstacles, or be better at other technical aspects of each shot.
As a result, there’s almost certainly going to be a character that gels well for every player. I personally opted for Erika as my main — not because she’s a golfing virtuoso on the field, but because she has a high chance of accidentally bashing herself in the face with her club while celebrating a birdie, the adorable little klutz.
As mentioned, there’s plenty to unlock — a wide range of characters, golf clubs and balls with specific strengths and weaknesses, as well as performance-enhancing food, caddies, costumes and all sorts of good stuff for players who put the time in. While a few more characters being available right off the bat would have been welcome, it’s an experience that rewards those who put the time in.
There are also plenty of modes available, from standard tournaments and party modes with random course effects, to a story mode for every character. It’s nothing too fancy, typically just the selected cast member having a chinwag with their friends and adversaries before playing a round of golf under various rulesets, but it’s a welcome addition.
In addition to the above, each course has a day and night cycle, variable weather systems, specific rules such as additional penalties for bunker shots, or miniature vortexes tucked away in each hole helping to suck close but marginally wayward shots towards their goal. Variety isn’t a problem here.
So! It’s great, right? Well… at heart it’s an enjoyable game of golf, but it’s not without some serious issues.
The first thing players will likely notice is that the default camera angle was apparently chosen by someone who’s never played golf — or even videogames before — offering a skewed angle that hinders the player’s ability to see what’s directly in front of them. Fortunately this can be permanently changed to a more traditional view in the options, but it gives a bizarre first impression.
Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots also looks objectively worse than the Vita version of Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational which was released more than a decade ago. This isn’t an exaggeration for comedic effect — the Vita build is visibly superior in almost all areas, ranging from overall presentation and personality to color depth and texture work.
About the only objective graphical improvement seen in Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots is that it can run at sixty frames a second, which should be a given… but given the occasionally shaky performance, it somehow misses the mark there as well, which makes things interesting while trying to take a shot as the swing timer can be affected. It also crashed any time I tabbed out of the game or attempted to change the window from full screen to borderless, so the PC version still needs work.
The gameplay also occasionally lands in the rough, with too many shots screwing up in an unrealistic manner. During the final hole of the Top Pro tour I took two nearly identical shots in quick succession with wildly different outcomes — one swing landing out of bounds and causing a reset, the next neatly flopping down close to the hole. There was no wind, nothing that could have caused such a huge disparity in outcome. Failing any other explanation, the game must have grossly miscalculated the first swing.
Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but they were wrong — the definition of insanity is performing the exact same stroke under the same conditions only to have the bloody golf ball curve sharp left on the first attempt, then veer hard right on the second. It certainly drove me insane, anyway.
Thankfully this randomness in the physics was only an occasional hiccup — if it happened more frequently, I’d say the game was fundamentally broken. Thankfully it isn’t, but when these moments of inexplicable weirdness crop up, they’re hard to ignore. Hopefully this issue will be patched soon.
It’s great to finally have Everybody’s Golf on PC, and even though this entry fails to meet the series’ usual high standards, it still offers a fine walk out on the links. That said, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that it’s only achieved the absolute minimum here. Until the various bugs and other issues are patched out, I simply can’t recommend Everybody’s Golf in its current state. No matter how good the general golfing experience is, it’s impossible to ignore the wonky physics and overall lack of ambition. What should have been a near-effortless hole in one is perilously close to becoming a triple bogey instead.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by HYDE and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 22 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and plenty of tournaments were won and courses unlocked. 3 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Mild Language and Mild Suggestive Themes. The official description reads: This is a golf simulation game in which players select from a collection of golfers to compete in matches. During a World Tour mode, characters engage in brief dialogue that references suggestive material (e.g., “…I heard I could use it to gaze up some lovely ladies”; “…[Y]our stalkers are on a whole new level of crazy”; “Did I startle you? Or were you peeking at something naughty?”). Some loading sequences depict close-up camera pans of golfers’ bodies. The word “damn” appears in the game.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. I’d rate this game as 100% playable without sound — while the caddies may call out things to be aware of, this important information such as wind speed or green undulation can always be acquired visually.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
The post Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.
A Sega PS5, PS4 game has been removed from the PS Plus Extra and Premium catalog without a warning. We’re not sure when Endless Dungeon: Definitive Edition disappeared from PS Plus, but we’ve checked several regions’ PS Store pages to confirm that it’s not currently part of the catalog.
Endless Dungeon: Definitive Edition was added to PS Plus Extra back in June 2025. While Sony does have six-month deals with some publishers, it’s unusual for a Sega game to leave PS Plus in that span of time, especially without notice.
We’re not sure if Endless Dungeon has been removed in all regions or not, but at the time of writing, it’s not available to claim in U.S. and U.K. PS stores. I looked around on gaming forums to see if anyone else noticed the game missing in the Extra catalog, and saw a few comments from players who said they were only able to play Endless Dungeon because they had previously downloaded it. Those who didn’t claim it are not able to download it for free.
This leads me to believe that Endless Dungeon’s removal is a temporary PS Store glitch. We’ve seen this happen before when Sony updated SKUs for games on the storefront. In the case of Sayonara Wild Hearts, the game disappeared from PS Plus Extra for a week as Sony updated its SKU after its native PS5 port was released.
Here’s hoping that’s also the case with Endless Dungeon.
We’ll update our readers when we have more information.
The post Sega PS5, PS4 Game Removed From PS Plus Without Notice appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
PS5 and PS4 users can soon play online multiplayer games for free without a PS Plus subscription for a limited time. Sony has announced a free multiplayer weekend that kicks off this Saturday, December 6, at midnight local time.
The free multiplayer weekend will end at 11:59 p.m. local time on Sunday, December 7. In other words, folks without PS Plus will have two full days of free multiplayer.
No games are off limits, so this is a good time to mop up those trophies or just have fun without forking out extra cash, and transport yourself back to those PS3 days when online gaming was free.
Do note that you will not be able to access any other PS Plus benefits, like cloud saves.
Sony is currently offering varying discounts on PS Plus memberships, but the offers are mostly targeted towards new subscribers, returning subscribers whose memberships ran out a while ago, or those who wish to upgrade from a lower tier to a higher tier. To find out if you qualify, head over to the PS Plus section of the PS Store via PS App or your console.
The post Play PS5/PS4 Multiplayer Games Without PS Plus for Limited Time appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
Each week Sony brings PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR, and PlayStation Plus owners new content, add-ons, games, and more. Here is the complete global PlayStation Store update. PlayStation LifeStyle catalogs the PlayStation Store updates for the major regions across the globe. Check back every Tuesday to keep up to date with each week’s PlayStation Store Update.
The post PlayStation Store Update Worldwide December 2, 2025 appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
Sony partner Implicit Conversions has provided an update on its “dream” PS3 emulation project, and it’s not what PS Plus Premium users wanted to hear. In a new interview, CEO Bill Litshauer revealed that PS3 emulation is more of a “backburner” passion project because there’s more demand for PS2 games, and Implicit Conversions hasn’t been asked for PS3 games specifically by Sony either.
The good news is that Implicit Conversions is working on PS3 emulation with a third party, so the project isn’t dead, as Litshauer confirmed to YouTuber Mystic (thanks, PSNProfiles):
Those hoping to see downloadable PS3 games on the PS5 and PS4 are going to have to wait.
PS3 games are currently only available via cloud streaming, so PS Plus Premium users who don’t have the internet speed to stream games will have to stick to downloadable classics. And PS Plus users outside of streaming countries, where Premium is replaced with Deluxe, don’t have access to PS3 games on PS5 and PS4 altogether.
Those without a PS Plus subscription are also completely out of luck unless they have access to a PS3 console.
I highly recommend watching the full interview, as it reveals a lot of interesting facts about bringing classics to modern platforms. What stuck out the most to me was the revelation that porting classics is an expensive affair overall, and some developers opt out of adding trophies because the feature adds to the cost of development.
Another interesting tidbit is that the process of porting classics is sometimes complicated by licenses and IP changing hands over the years, and in some cases, license/IP owners are deceased.
The post PS3 Emulation Update Isn’t Great News for Some PS Plus Users appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing. This week, Kelsey discovers the joys and stresses of managing border control in Papers, Please; Tom holds off his Kojima dislike and plays Death Stranding; Victoria looks for anyone she can to talk to about Dispatch; Ed can't stop thinking about balls; Connor finds himself back in Guild Wars 2; and Bertie finds himself back in Dungeons & Dragons, getting everyone in trouble again.
At the tail end of 2024 the original PlayStation turned 30 years old. While the Xbox 360 is only hitting 20 and it's not an industry shaker to the degree the PS1 was, there's no doubt it earned its place as one of the most important consoles of all time. Xbox managed to challenge Sony in the traditional home console space the PlayStation had dominated with PS1 and PS2, and the console's brilliant line-up of games played a major role in that.
Back in 2007, I was taking my A-level exams. For both English Literature and Drama, I came out with A*s. I'm still quite proud of this, which you can probably tell from the fact I'm bringing it up all these years later - but there's a reason I'm bringing this up beyond the chance for a belated humble brag: I owe my full-scoring papers, weirdly, to BioShock.
The first PS Plus Extra November 2025 game has leaked, and it’s already massively disappointed some users. Frankly, we can see why. Not long after Rockstar Games announced another Grand Theft Auto VI release date delay, a reliable leaker revealed that GTA V is returning to the Extra catalog this month.
GTA V has been in and out of the PS Plus Extra catalog multiple times, so its inclusion in November’s lineup — confirmed by none other than Dealabs user billbil-kun — has come as a huge disappointment to users. At least that’s what it looks like gauging responses to the leak.
Many are hoping that GTA V doesn’t end up being the headliner for November.
“Waste of a slot; everybody and their grandma has played GTA V,” one user wrote on Reddit. “A game spot already wasted. Who tf wants GTA V anymore,” a fellow user concurred.
Although we understand the disappointment, GTA V continues to dominate sales charts and remains one of the most popular games on PS5 and PS4, so we can understand why Sony keeps bringing it back. That said, we too hope that GTA V doesn’t end up being the November headliner as compensation for a lackluster catalog refresh heading into the holiday season.
Like all leaks, take this with a grain of salt until official confirmation. But billbil-kun has a stellar record so keep those expectations in check.
The post PS Plus Extra November Game Leak Massively Disappoints appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
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