Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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Quote: Originally Posted by MrArlingtonBeach

I liked that Rory had life to its rounds - your caddie was there, standing near you or even holding the flag as you lined up your putts. Fans moved more naturally, and even walked around on pathways off to the side. This is something I expect EA to continue - have a realistic atmosphere that feels like a real PGA Tour event.

Yes, this was one of many atmospheric things Rory did right. They actually curbed this back from what they were showing in some of the pre-release screens. I recall them showing a screen from the 17th green at Sawgrass, for example, where they were showing your caddie standing where he should be, and your playing companion and his caddie standing where they would have been, given the location of the playing companion's ball. It would be such an enhancement to have your opponent and their caddie be in view off in the periphery when they should be. I was very disappointed when Rory released and they had backed away from offering that in the final game, but at least you could still see the caddie.

The gallery movement you mention as they walked on pathways was very well done also. They were fairly convincing in both their animation and their image quality. They didn't have the zombie like appearance of most of the PGA TOUR 2K21 'patrons'

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Quote: Originally Posted by lowpaiddonkey10

I would like to see a caddie or four and my opponents standing around the tee.

You are preaching to the choir brother! They keep saying how resource intensive this would be... would it demand all that many more resources than deer, cows and other wildlife animating in the immediate periphery. I'll be truly shocked if EA doesn't do this right in their next game. The PS5 and Series X are so much more capable of handling something like this.

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Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

Also, I agree that the artificial difficulty curve at the beginning coming from only being able to drive the ball 220 and having to hit 3 iron into every par 4 is a really poor way to implement difficulty. Especially, as you point out, if your create-a-player was a former NCAA champ! Doesn't compute....

This totally doesn't compute with me either. I remember teaching a co-worker how to play golf about 20 years ago. He'd never picked up a golf club in his life at age 34. Within a week he was hitting 290 yard drives. Yeah, he had serious control problems but he was always flying the ball further than me.

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I will agree with that. I also like that the galleries are pseudo-interactive; I've had more than one wayward shot hit a spectator in the leg bounce back into play. I think that's pretty cool when it happens. The galleries are pretty well done in the game.

Great example of how galleries should be implemented in golf games. I also liked it when a gallery member would be writhing in pain, or going down after getting hit in earlier Tiger games. It was also pretty clever the way they'd duck and guard themselves when you changed your target line to put them in your path. Didn't they start doing that in at least TW 10?

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Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

Great example of how galleries should be implemented in golf games. I also liked it when a gallery member would be writhing in pain, or going down after getting hit in earlier Tiger games. It was also pretty clever the way they'd duck and guard themselves when you changed your target line to put them in your path. Didn't they start doing that in at least TW 10?

Yes, they did! And it cracks me up to this day as much as it did back then.

One minor criticism I have is that when you're 10 shots back and not in contention, or going out in the first round in the morning, your galleries should be a lot thinner. I am (very mildly) annoyed that the size/density of the crowd doesn't change based on the situation, but honestly, I hesitate to even type that because it's such a dumb / nit-picky thing to comment on.

Ending on a positive note, the dynamic lighting and morning/afternoon lighting of the courses is very well implemented in Rory. I was in a tournament where I made the cut on the number (I play on hardest difficulty with no assists and random wind gusts, don't judge ), so I went out in one of the first groups of the day, and the course had the early morning/dawn lighting during my round. Conversely, when you're leading going into the weekend rounds, you get that full sunlight / afternoon lighting. I think that is pretty awesome and a really good implementation of what seems like just a cosmetic thing but is actually important (atmosphere-wise) to real life PGA golf. I haven't gotten the sense that if you go out early on Thursday you get the late round on Friday, but again, I'm really being nit-picky here. Must be just that kind of day.

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So many great comments being made here.

I really hope EA nails it on all these atmospheric aspects on this next-gen (current I guess) hardware.

I think they probably wanted to do so much more than Rory did and probably hit some walls with the PS4 hardware generation capabilities ultimately.

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Quote: Originally Posted by scagwi

So many great comments being made here. I really hope EA nails it on all these atmospheric aspects on this next-gen (current I guess) hardware. I think they probably wanted to do so much more than Rory did and probably hit some walls with the PS4 hardware generation capabilities ultimately.

It's interesting how, now a few years later, dusting the game off again has allowed me to maybe be a little more objective about it. There are many things I still dislike about it, but there are some good things there, too. During its original release time, I basically played a few hours, decided it was garbage, and didn't pick it up again until.....well, now I guess.

Lots I still really dislike intensely (primarily the core gameplay loop...."dial-a-distance" and then "don't let the green bubble go red" is basically the game in a nutshell), but some of the nuances that I think I didn't pay attention to originally are pretty good. The game still looks plenty good of course - best looking EA golf game to date (which stands to reason as it's the only one on then-current-gen systems). I'm glad they finally went with a brighter color palette, as the Tiger Woods games all have that overall dark/overcast color palette and muddy green tones that I hate.

I'm thinking I'm going to play through a season or two at this point just to see what else I might have missed the first time around. Of course, it didn't help that half the courses that are now in the game weren't there when it was originally released (many after I stopped playing already), so I'm sure that didn't help my original impressions. Anyway, I'm playing the game quite a bit the last week or so, so obviously it was decent enough to hold my attention for a while.

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Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

This totally doesn't compute with me either. I remember teaching a co-worker how to play golf about 20 years ago. He'd never picked up a golf club in his life at age 34. Within a week he was hitting 290 yard drives. Yeah, he had serious control problems but he was always flying the ball further than me.

You took a guy that had never picked up a club and had him driving 290 within a week? Are you free for private lessons?

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Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

You took a guy that had never picked up a club and had him driving 290 within a week? Are you free for private lessons?

He was a natural athlete who has the fastest, wristiest swing I've ever seen. All of his power came from his holding off his wrists until he was almost at the bottom of his downswing. He'd be 290 yards out, but more often than not, in the wrong fairway! I'll take you as a client, but I must warn you... I don't work cheap now that I'm retired and need to supplement my fixed income!