Rory McIlroy PGA Tour: Still Thin, But Not As Bare As At Launch

[sammy g]

It's on sale through PSN for $16 for those who were waiting to pick it up for cheap.


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Quote: Originally Posted by sammy g

It's on sale through PSN for $16 for those who were waiting to pick it up for cheap.

I've been holding off for what I'd hoped would eventually be the inclusion of an option to turn off the tempo bubble meter, but when I saw $16, I figured what the heck. I'd forgotten the insufferable early stages of this game from my 10 hour EA Access time with it on the XB1, so I'm plowing through that right now.

The graphics are truly first rate in this game; I just wish they could figure out a way to allow users to configure the presentation and interface options to what I consider next-gen levels. While I hadn't forgotten how annoying the tempo bubble was (at least to me... I don't have enough sensory discipline to ignore it), I had forgotten how much I dislike Follow Cam. RMPGAT does follow cam well, I've just never liked follow cam on any game on any system... just not my thing. I know the Pro View option is there, but it needs a lot of work to even match up to the "Stay with golfer view (for as long as you like)" in The Golf Club.

I'll play it some more once I get past these early obligatory stages, and get into the Advanced Tour Custom settings. I can see that some significant improvements have been made since I played the EA Access version back in July on the XB1, but it sill lacks the polish of the presentation and interface of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, and the quality of the Connected Live Tournaments of Tiger 14. I hope EA Sports sticks with it and gets it up to at least what we had in Tiger 13, and hopefully later, Tiger 14's connected tournaments.

[jenglund]

I'm torn...16 bucks is cheap. I never thought I'd get this version, but that's a good deal.

But I have my PS3 Tiger Woods 14, and I still haven't made it very far into that career.

And reading about the dumb celebrations for this game is a turn off.

Is career mode at least pretty decent? I know there's a barebones player creator, but do you level up skills in a similar way as past games and get your player better over time? And just keep playing seasons?

[Pappy Knuckles]

$16? I'll bite. Not expecting much improvement from when I rented it at launch, but hopefully online has improved a bit. It was a pretty game, so it had that going for it.

[MJDrocks]

I nabbed it for 16. Looking forward to diving into it

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I've now played enough to get past the obligatory 'rite of passage' stages, and have set myself up for Advanced Tour Custom mode. It does ratchet the difficulty up nicely, and I hit some woefully bad shots where I got lazy, and in some cases, distracted by the tempo meter. I've already reached the point where I'm ready to put a circular piece of tape over it. I'm starting to find some degree of feel with the swing, as after a while, my double digit backswing and "tempo" percentages varied no more than 6%, with 3 and 4 being more the norm. Still, there's something dodgy about the swing animation and interface. It seems to have a narrow execution zone. Either the animation will reset if I'm going what is my normal backswing speed, or it will move in spurts if I get a wee bit fast with it... even the tempo bubble show quick spurts when this happens.

I've been dying to see a quality rendition of my favorite local course, Quail Hollow, and played it this afternoon in one of the Tour mode Daily tournaments. The course captured the essence of Quail Hollow to a level of detail I didn't think would be possible on a console! I shot a 77, with my 62 overall attribute player. I missed a lot of greens and a lot of fairways, but the wind was blowing 13 to 18 MPH. Still, a number of my "misses" were due to my not nailing the swing.

The accuracy errors seemed to be reasonably balanced. I missed three or four putts of 4 feet, or less, leaving them short... the short putt swing execution is a touchy, head-scratcher. I don't know any other way to describe it, other than it feels "klunky" to me. Here again, I'd love to be able to turn off the tempo bubble that's just below the golfer, and gauge my swing off the golfer's swing animation, even though the putting animation looks and feels a bit sputtery.

I did play Bay Hill last night and thought it looked fantastic. I love all the eye candy in the background, the spectators milling about, the caddie being in view where they should, all the characteristic landmarks being faithfully in place, and the textures look great!

Finally, and I know this is just some peculiar quirk about my perceptions, but there's an abiding sense that I'm running fixed segment film clips of my player playing golf as I play this game, instead of the golfer being in the environment and having things unfold around him until they've naturally played out. Let me try to explain: The shot setup and preparation is fine, then comes the swing, which seems to require a relatively narrow range of swing speeds, or it freezes and restarts, or moves in spurts that seem like something happening with an old style film. Then as the ball is finding its way to its destination, it frequently comes to a premature, abrupt stop, that 'film sequence' ends and an unnecessarily long cutaway view film clip of your golfer's post shot movements (thankfully not the ridiculous dances of the launch version) are shown.

I come away thinking I've just watched a three part film (any part of which looks great in screen shots), instead of vicariously living out an experience in which I was a free flowing element in an environment that existed to allow it to happen in its own terms. I don't know, it's tough to explain... I do plan to play it some more to give it more of a chance, but I would love to see the Pro View presentation get some help tracking the ball from the golfer's perspective, and maybe even a reverse angle landing camera option for it. I'd dearly love the option to turn off the tempo bubble meter. Finally, I'd like to see the return of connected live tournaments, or at least leaderboards in live tournaments that give, live, hole-by-hole scoring updates.

I can say with confidence that RMPGAT is worth every bit of $16, but it still feels like a work in progress... one that still got quite a ways to go to reach its true potential. I think EA Sports realizes this, but I have to wonder, if they're already having to cut the price to this degree, are they going to be able to maintain enough of a revenue stream to get it there?

[DivotMaker]

The swing is very different than TGC. It IS 1:1 where TGC has such a lag and no tempo in the swing, that is what is causing your "resets".

[MJDrocks]

Just completed my first round with a 71 (-1) on TPC SG using Rory. I'll post the settings I used below. Keep in mind that I've only played one round but I have to say that this game looks and feels really nice. The commentary was very solid and much improved over the latest Tiger game. Have a feeling this could be my go to golf title.

Swing Mechanic: Advanced
Swing Difficulty: Hard
Power Boost: Off
Spin Control: Off
Green Grid: On
Putt Read: Off
Shot Shaping: Off
Lie Effect: Advanced
Wind Gust: Off
Zoom: Off
Aiming Arc: Off