EA Sports first iteration of next-gen golf is here in Rory McIlroy PGA Tour. I’ve only had time to play a couple of rounds at this point, but want to offer up some first impressions just in case you are on the fence on buying the game or not today.

• There are times the game looks amazing, other times where moire with the tall grass and such make it look horrible. Yes, the detail is stunning in terms of how the blades of grass were put together, etc. — but the drawback is that it sometimes is ‘too much’ detail for the resolution. The image, at least to me, looks too sharp which is causing the issues. However, the game doesn’t look bad, but it does have moments where it doesn’t look great for sure.
• Gameplay wise Rory is at the very least an adequate game on the course. It’s definitely not bad, and I’m tempted to say it’s not overly brilliant either. What Rory does on the course, it does well. If you want a hardcore sim, I suspect you can find it by fiddling with some settings. The default difficulty is very forgiving, as you can see in the video above. It really takes the thinking out of the golf and just allows you to play incredibly aggressive.
• I’ve only played on the default settings so far as I didn’t want to embarrass myself too badly in the videos I’ve captured, but the drives and approach shots are definitely too easy on the default settings. I’ve had zero problems getting GIR on holes with the default settings. I’m certain that once I bump up the difficulty, the game will start to be more of a challenge in that regard.
• Putting is something I’m still getting used to. After playing The Golf Club for the last six months, my first few holes were fraught with fighting the ‘ideal line’ in Rory. Once I blocked that out and started using some common sense my putting instantly got a lot better. You do have to read greens and bad shots can punish you.
• After bumping up the difficulty a bit I was able to play a bit more of a variety of shots. While the game still feels easy, the necessity to think through what you are doing is still there. You can't just aim and shoot blindly. You do have to consider elevation, the wind, the lie, and everything else you'd suspect. Golf gaming veterans won't have an issue picking up Rory and finding success though.
• Quick rounds are as advertised. You can play a full tournament in less than an hour no problem thanks to how its set up. It really forces you to play well though, you can't have an off hole, or you will be punished for that. In that way, it may make for more of a challenge long-term and definitely leads to more variety since you miss a bunch of holes some tournaments so inevitably when the tour comes back around to the same course, it'll feel different if you play different holes.

Conclusion

So far so good. The fears that Rory wasn’t going to be a sim at all were unfounded, the game plays like golf should be played. I’ll need to bump my own difficulty up and see how it plays there. I also need to dive into the modes and play more different courses for sure. I’m not getting the all-time classic type of greatness vibe, but I also don’t think this game is anything near average or bad. So if you are a golf fan and want to invest in a title that is sure to grow (and if you don’t want to wait on my review), picking up Rory isn’t the worst decision you’ll make in 2015.

Look for more thoughts in the coming days leading up to my review!