Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

[bigkev]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

You're asking a lot there, it sounds great for us golf nerds but most would absolutely hate that. I mean, I was in high heaven in TW13, I love just about all of it. The improved sponsorship challenges, the steps thru sponsors, and I just love spending all that time unlocking courses with my own coins.

Yet EA got hammered that customers had to spend all those hours to unlock the courses and equipment for free, all we heard was micro-transactions, micro-transactions, micro-transactions. Most wants everything, right f now. They had all of with HB before 2K shows up, no need to build anything with your golfer, no micro-transaction.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

You're asking a lot there, it sounds great for us golf nerds but most would absolutely hate that. I mean, I was in high heaven in TW13, I love just about all of it. The improved sponsorship challenges, the steps thru sponsors, and I just love spending all that time unlocking courses with my own coins.

Yet EA got hammered that customers had to spend all those hours to unlock the courses and equipment for free, all we heard was micro-transactions, micro-transactions, micro-transactions. Most wants everything, right f now. They had all of with HB before 2K shows up, no need to build anything with your golfer, no micro-transaction.

Oh, for sure...I know that's a lot of pie in the sky thoughts there. I'd almost need an "Out of the Park" style game for golf to complement the "MLB The Show" PGA Tour game.

If they'd at least implement more sponsor things like TW 12 and 13 had, that would be good for me. PGA 2K21 sponsor stuff was so watered down and the goals made no sense (shoot -8 in a round without hitting a hazard is one that bugged me...I could shoot a -10 round, but because I hit one sand trap, I failed the goal. Silly). Plus, the sponsor contracts last 2 or 3 events. That's unrealistic and goofy to be hopping from TaylorMade to Callaway to Bridgestone to Ben Hogan all within one season.

I guess all I am looking for is a bit more depth and more realism when it comes to a PGA Tour career mode.

[pietasterp]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

You're asking a lot there, it sounds great for us golf nerds but most would absolutely hate that. I mean, I was in high heaven in TW13, I love just about all of it. The improved sponsorship challenges, the steps thru sponsors, and I just love spending all that time unlocking courses with my own coins.

Yet EA got hammered that customers had to spend all those hours to unlock the courses and equipment for free, all we heard was micro-transactions, micro-transactions, micro-transactions. Most wants everything, right f now. They had all of with HB before 2K shows up, no need to build anything with your golfer, no micro-transaction.

I like pretty much all of MrArlingtonBeach's thoughts and would be pretty happy w/ that kind of career mode. But I don't think any of that requires locking content behind an artificial wall to accomplish. Especially courses - those should never be locked in a golf game. Re: equipment etc, there's a way to do it where it doesn't seem penal but is an accomplishment; for example, maybe you could buy some of the higher-tier equipment if you want to use it before you are sponsored by a company, but once you are sponsored you get all of the equipment for free. Or something like that.

But they definitely have to make the career something worth spending time on. I mean, I won a tournament and nothing happened - they didn't even bring it up, I just hit "X" and moved on to the next tournament. Talk about a let-down...

The funniest line I read about Rory McIlroy PGA Tour's career mode was (and I'm paraphrasing here) if a career in professional golf was as unrewarding in real life as it is in this game, Rory might have pursued a masters in accounting as opposed to one at Augusta.

[bigkev]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

If someone doesn't like locked courses, it's pretty easy, 2K/HB is the game for them. If someone doesn't like to build his golfer and want to go at it right away on their career mode, 2K/HB is the game. If someone is only interested in playing an unlimited amount of courses, it's 2K/HB. For those hating everything EA and promised themselves to never buy another game from them, 2K/HB is the game for them. There will be choice now.

[callmetaternuts]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

I’d like to see the ability to select type of
Golfer (bomber like Bryson, short game wizard like Spieth, all around, good iron player) with ability to improve in weak areas.

I don’t like starting as a “high ranked amateur or
Pro” but can only hit the ball 220 off tee. I don’t want to rank up from duffer to pro unless it’s consistency. No one going to Q school drives the ball 220.

Caddies should play a part in yardages. Slightly different reads etc would be interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[lowpaiddonkey10]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

Because almost all of them are career mode guys, and they want some of the stuff EA used to have. Most of them want to go from hacker to pro to build their golfer like in EA. I'm one of those guys wanting to build from scratch and thru the Tours. As long as there's lot of contents i.e. Majors, PGA courses stops, etc. the rest is just nice to have.

I actually didn't mind the caddie in TW12. You had the choice of executing the shot or going your own way. It was just different.

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

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

[pietasterp]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

If someone doesn't like locked courses, it's pretty easy, 2K/HB is the game for them. If someone doesn't like to build his golfer and want to go at it right away on their career mode, 2K/HB is the game. If someone is only interested in playing an unlimited amount of courses, it's 2K/HB. For those hating everything EA and promised themselves to never buy another game from them, 2K/HB is the game for them. There will be choice now.

This seems like an unnecessarily hardline view.

I’d like to see the ability to select type of
Golfer (bomber like Bryson, short game wizard like Spieth, all around, good iron player) with ability to improve in weak areas.

I don’t like starting as a “high ranked amateur or
Pro” but can only hit the ball 220 off tee. I don’t want to rank up from duffer to pro unless it’s consistency. No one going to Q school drives the ball 220.

Caddies should play a part in yardages. Slightly different reads etc would be interesting.

Same wavelength. I actually made Bryson as my 'create-a-player' for this renewed go-around with the game, and I'm trying as best I can to make him a power-hitter at the expense of the other skills, but it's not clear to me what any of the attributes do (why is there "strength", "long game", and "driving"? what do each of these things do?). Also, the create-a-player options are really limited...pretty much any guy you make ends up looking exactly the same as any other guy you can make.

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....

I always hate it when I'm better at golf in real life than my videogame character guy is. Because I'm not really that good at golf in real life.

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.

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.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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'

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

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?

[pietasterp]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

[scagwi]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

[pietasterp]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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.

[pietasterp]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Available Today - Post Your Impressions Here

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?