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Article: Rory McIlroy PGA Tour Review

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  • Article: Rory McIlroy PGA Tour Review

    More bogeys than birdies.
    Rory McIlroy PGA Tour for the PlayStation 4 takes about one step forward and two steps back when compared to previous entries in the franchise. It's a game that looks and plays well but it's also a game that feels light on content. This entire package is then tied together with one of the most horrendous menu interfaces in recent memory. To put is simply: The game feels unfinished.

    Positives
    The game looks amazing.
    In general, the game looks amazing thanks to the use of the Frostbite Engine. Textures are typically high resolution and the courses, even the fantasy ones, are a remarkable sight thanks to fantastic lighting. Unfortunately, there are a few issues here and there (see Negatives below).
    No load times between holes.
    Frostbite also eliminates the loading times between holes, which can actually shave a good chunk of time off a full round of golf. Once you start playing in tournaments, that time saved not waiting for load times is very welcome.
    The actual act of golfing in the game feels great.
    The amount of control a player has over their shot is actually quite impressive. You can select a number of shot types prior to taking a swing and then add some extra spin while the ball is travelling. Your shots will be properly impacted based on things like the type of lie, slope, and the wind.
    The commentary is top notch.
    I'm a big fan of the commentary in the game, provided by Rich Lerner and Frank Nobilo. The quips are usually on point and varied enough that it never really becomes tiresome over a play session. I did encounter a few rare instances where I heard the same line two holes in a row, but it wasn't often enough to really bother me.

    Actually, now that I think about it, there was at least one instance where the commentary insulted me. I forget the exact circumstances but I was essentially told that I should just quit. After the initial shock wore off, I couldn't help but laugh. The brutal honesty was actually refreshing.

    The commentary really shined bright during tournaments and while playing the fantasy courses. Commentary during the tournaments proved to be insightful. The duo would even reference back to how the player performed on a hole the previous day. The fantasy courses allowed the two to let their hair down with some amusing and even chuckle worthy comments about the course and the player.
    Fantasy courses!
    I am a very big fan of the fantasy courses that EA decided to include in the game. The obvious standout here is the Par-3 course based off of the infamous Paracel Storm map from Battlefield 4. To those wondering, yes, the ship does crash for one of the holes. Sadly, despite the skies looking cloudy off in the distance, there is not a drop of rain to be seen.
    The "Night Club Challenge" mode is outstanding.
    To put it simply, this mode is a series of diverse and often difficult challenges that will task you with earning high scores and stars while trying to best your friends and your previous accomplishments. The mode includes a variety of arcade-inspired power-ups that add to the fun and skill for the later challenges.

    The power-ups include, but are not limited to: Pause, an ability that momentarily pause your ball in mid-flight to avoid obstacles. Nitro is used to propel your ball further than normal. A remote control lets you perfectly steer your ball in the air or on the ground. A sticky ball will stop your ball in a blink of an eye while on the ground. Beyond the power-ups just mentioned, there are a bonus handful of equally unique power-ups that you will utilize on your quest to earn a high score on every challenge.

    The best part is that the initial set of challenges take place at night with a number of neon lights that really set the visual style into a league of its own compared to the normal game modes. I would love to see a series of courses built around this idea of golfing at night with only these neon light outlines to light the way.

    There are 170 challenges that you can tackle, all of which are spread out across three courses. Many of these challenges are easy to pass but hard to master.
    Plenty of gear customization options.
    Strangely enough, there are many customization options when it comes to clothing, clubs, and even golf balls. Compared to the actual character customization options, the gear customization options are downright massive.
    A gameplay style for everyone.
    By default, there are three different preset gameplay styles you can make use of. Arcade is the first and it focuses on intuitive gameplay using the analog stick to pull your club back and swing it forward. This style seems to have a lot of assists turned on by default but nothing that necessarily makes this style anything close to "EZ Mode." This is undoubtedly the style most players, new and old, will probably select. It feels the most natural while still offering up a decent golfing challenge.

    The second option is the "Classic" style. This is the old school three-click style. The first click sets a meter in motion, the second one stops it in the power zone, and the third determines accuracy. It's an almost ancient gameplay mechanic now, but it's still one that will appeal to the OG fans that pick this one up.

    The third style is "Tour" and it offers up the greatest challenge. All assists are disabled in this mode including the aiming arc, putt reading, mid-flight spin control, and pretty much anything else you can think of. It's just you and the course with this mode and will probably be the mode many flock to once they get the hang of things in the Arcade style.

    Finally, there is the added bonus of being able to create a custom gameplay style. This allows you to pick and choose which features from the other styles that you actually want to use. Want to have the increased difficulty from the swing mechanic in the Tour style but still have the putting line enabled, you can.
    Easily go head-to-head against friends online or locally.
    There are a few different ways to participate in online events. You can group up either with some friends or strangers for some live rounds of golf in the Head-to-Head mode. The best part of this mode is that you can play wish some pals either online or with everyone in the same room together. In the online matchups, everyone takes their shots at the same time. You see everybody's avatar and shots as they happen and if you finish the hole before others, you can kick back and relax while you wait for them to finish. The online head-to-head rounds seemed to work just fine but there were a few hiccups to be found (see negatives).
    Online tournaments are fun, varied, and rewarding.
    Another major online component are the official tournaments. These come in a couple of flavors that range from daily tournaments to longer, weekly tournaments. Each tournament setup includes Amateur and Pro events in either the Arcade, Classic, or Tour control schemes. From what I saw, the Pro tournaments had larger payouts for the best competitors. Since variety is the spice of life, these tournaments will often have unique modifiers set that range from disabling the aiming arch to playing in very windy conditions.

    Oddly, these tournaments were more of a solo affair than one where you could compete against others in a live environment. You go through a tournament round by yourself as you try to earn the lowest score possible for the day or the week. Sure, the crowd cheers but the feeling of competition is absent when you cannot see the competition playing alongside you. Of course, this also means that you do not have to wait on others in order to finish your round. This decision obviously has its pros and cons. By the slightest of margins, I oddly prefer the fact that I can play a round in a tournament by myself because it allows me to play at my own pace.

    Negatives
    Distracting visual pop-in.
    Despite the game generally looking better, it still suffered from pop-in and very visible level of detail changes as the camera followed a ball in flight. Things like trees and bushes would often visibly show up as the camera tracked the ball. Amusingly enough, I even saw wildlife models pop in on the background for the game's main menu a few short moments after starting the game.

    On top of that, there is a bit of a "shimmering" type of effect when the camera moves near a sea of rough length grass. As the blades of grass seem to be represented quite faithfully in the game, the effect is that the tips of the grass cause a weird shimmer to appear when moving the camera. This is most easily seen when adjusting your aim with the camera lower to the ground. It was easy enough for me to ignore but I have no doubts that this will be a deal breaker for some.
    Lacking and laggy character creator.
    The character creator feels like a bit of a joke. The options are incredibly limited. You are only able to choose from a handful of preset faces, hairstyles, body types, and heights. There is no way to fully customize a character's face as you might have liked. There are no sliders. There is no way to scan your face into the game. This is about a barebones character creator as you can possibly get.

    On top of this, the entire process is incredibly slow. Sure, there are only a handful of predetermined styles in each category but they took far too long to load in when selecting a new option. I would select a new face and it took multiple seconds before the new model actually loaded in. To say this was frustrating would be putting it mildly. You can clearly see this issue in the video below.


    It is possible to select from one of three backstories. However, these choices didn't appear to have much of an impact outside of some unique flavor commentary during tournaments. At the end of the day, I have no emotional connection to my character. There is no way to make them look like you, or your friend, or a loved one. They just end up being a generic looking man (or woman) with bad looking hair and unremarkable face selections.
    A lack of courses.
    There are only 13 courses, 12 if you do not get the pre-order bonus course of TPC Scottsdale. These include a mix of real world locations and fantasy courses. Sure, all of the courses look great and the inclusion of fantasy courses is very much appreciated. However, it still feels as though there aren't enough courses. There aren't enough locations and events to appease golf fans.

    To be brutally honest, in a world where games, including competing sports titles, have the ability to create custom content, having only 13 courses is quite disappointing. A course creator and a means to share these custom courses with the world would be huge for this game. It would literally open up a world of unlimited content. Of course, the moment something like this is added is the moment the franchise stops being an annual or even bi-annual release.

    I'm sure most companies are not ready to take that step just yet. Though I also know that the fans would welcome that feature with arms wide open.
    Lack of weather.
    I'd love to see some weather. The only options for weather are how fast you want the wind and from what single direction the wind should be blowing for all 18 holes. That is it. You can't do something like select a wind range of 2-8 MPH with "random" directions or anything of the sort. You are instead going to see settings like 1-2 MPH with winds blowing to the West.

    The only other real adjustments you can make to the "weather" are deciding if you want to play during the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. This naturally affects the lighting but doesn't really do much else in terms of affecting the gameplay. Where are the rolling clouds, the random wind, or the rain? We have seen "live" or dynamic weather experience in football and baseball games for years now, but it's a feature that is sadly absent from this year's PGA Tour.
    Sluggish interface.
    There is a slight delay when hitting triangle (Y on Xbox) to view the potential landing area for your shot. It has led to situations where the button was tapped again, thus immediately resetting the camera, because I thought that the first press didn't register.

    This landing zone view also doesn't do a good enough job of initially showing you the potential flight path of your shot, instead opting to "instantly" move the camera from behind the player out to the expected landing area. There is no flyby of the hole from the tee when tapping the shot preview button. There is no generally easy way to tell the trajectory of your shot short of slowing turning the camera around to look back towards your player. In most cases, the entire situation feels a tad bit too clunky and not as intuitive as I would have liked.
    Odd default gameplay choices.
    For some inexplicable reason, tournaments default to a "quick round" option. This means that instead of playing a full 18 holes for each day of the tournament, you play only a selection of holes each day. This allows you to play through an entire tournament in a fraction of the time.

    Useful? Of course, but it has no business being the default option when you start a tournament. It is possible to set up tournaments to allow you to play 18 holes each day. The more hardcore golf fans out there will want to make sure this is enabled before kicking off their professional careers.
    Small hiccups during online play.
    While the small number of online modes are decent enough receive passing marks, there was at least one little hiccup I encountered when playing a head-to-head match. I'm not sure what causes it, but every so often, you will see the avatars for other players kind of warping around when taking your shot. It's a slight bit distracting but it's certainly not game breaking. I am going to assume it was just an issue with the client side connection or a small issue as a result of launch week.
    Where is the rest of the review? Well, a good portion of this game centers on online gameplay. This includes either playing a round with some friends or participating in online tournaments. While some of the functionality was just fine during the pre-release window, it just doesn't feel right to offer a "full" review without waiting for the online servers to be populated by the public.

    What is coming down the line for this game? I'm not actually sure. I've indirectly heard some murmurings that EA is not going to make this an annual release. That is to say, Rory McIlroy PGA Tour will have to last a couple of years, at the very least. I also heard that there will be some "free" DLC offered down the line. Does that mean free courses? I sure hope so. Or is this free content more simple like more ball designs? Maybe. Will we see updates that improve the responsiveness of menus or the shot preview? Hopefully.

    If EA wants this game to succeed, it needs to have some tremendous post-launch support. They need to iron out the sluggish UI, add in a deeper character creator, add in little touches like weather, and they could go the generous extra mile by offering up some free bonus courses. It's difficult to recommend this game to someone on the fence based solely on what the game may one day end up offering. It's honestly a shame because at its core, there's some really solid and really enjoyable gameplay here. Just iron out those edges, EA, and you'll have a winner on your hands.



    Final update: With the online tested post launch, I can safely say that Rory McIlroy PGA Tour has the basis for being a great game. The core golfing mechanics remain solid and the online functionality was overall a very smooth experience. Though again, many areas of the game just feel incomplete or lacking. I simply cannot suggest fans go out and spend $60 on this based only on the belief that it will one day be amazing. As I said before, if EA can fix the interface, flesh out their character creator, and add in some amazing free courses (fingers crossed), then this could be a very solid title. As it stands right now, not so much.


    Related Information
    Title: Rory McIlroy PGA Tour
    Platforms: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (Reviewed on PlayStation 4)
    Website: https://www.easports.com/pga-tour
    ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
    Full Disclosure: Rory McIlroy PGA Tour was provided to Total Gaming Network for review purposes from EA.

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