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Originally Posted by peigone |
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Fabulous post pietasterp. I've been PC golfing since the early 1990's, and your post strikes a real chord with me. Years ago -- sometime around the demise of the golf sim era (Links and FPS Golf) I recall going into an electronics store and watching one of the store's salespeople playing a golf game that was being shown on their wall of televisions. At first I thought it was a TV broadcast of a live PGA tournament. It was photo-realistic, and the commentary and applause sounded like a live broadcast crew and gallery. (Never did find out what that game was BTW.)
Anyway, THAT'S where I expected golf sims to be several years down the road. But something happened in between then and now -- the game console took over. Funny, this morning I was just reading a "Developer's Diary" article about MLB 2K9. In it, the fellow was waxing philosophical about the need to remove (dumb down) certain features that were in MLB 2K8 because "pickup and play users struggled with figuring it out."
That's the gaming era we're in now. Basically, if young people aren't interested, then developers have little or no motivation to add it to the game. And young people would not think twice about the fact that when they hit a ball 40 yards left of the fairway, that the ball is magically respawned back on the fairway with a stroke penalty. If anything, that's what they want in a game because it speeds things up and keeps it simple.
It's also why past features like course creation tools were removed, why the ability to edit and add PGA pros was removed, why the ability to create your own custom season was removed, etc. and so forth. I also be believe it's why photo-realism has never been introduced into this series. The look of the game, and the bright color palettes they use, have been kept cartoon-like for the same reasons -- it all appeals to young people.
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While one PC Golf game could be considered "photo-realistic", it was hampered by a 2D non-dynamic nor 3D environment which is certainly easier to render than what is rendered in TW12...by a LARGE MARGIN. Playing Links 2003 was like playing in a vacuum postcard environment, IMO. Zero animation of anything on the course other than the golfer, ball, and flag. EVERYTHING in TW12 is animated and the environments are dynamic with changing weather and lighting that changes as the day progresses. Huge difference from Links 2003....
Consoles have NEVER had a true course architect for various reasons, but the biggest reasons are:
1) Lack of harddrive for ALL consoles (360 is not standard, Wii has none)
2) No real way for most users to use a mouse and keyboard to design courses. No way could you design a course with a gamepad with any sort of quality.
3) The software tools to create courses (3D programs and tools) are extremely expensive and cumbersome for most users to use effectively.
There are various other reasons, but those are the biggest.