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

[chops44]

Quote: Originally Posted by 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

After winning my first four tournaments on "tour" I switched to these settings.
The one change I made was wind gusts on.
I've only made the cut in 1 of the next six tourneys.
It might be too difficult... lol


Not sure if the wind gusts are actually doing anything, but I can make a swing that looks perfect on the meter and it still pushes way right or left and the rough penalizes you severely.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

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?

For your complaints about playing something scripted, RM is designed around TV PGA Tournament golf, therefore you see the reactions of the golfers quite a bit, just like the PGA TOUR on CBS, NBC, Foc, and Golf Channel. Is it intrusive and not highly polished? You could say that, but you can press the X button to move the game forward.

As far as the interface and its "highly intolerant control band", I would have agreed with you when the game was released, but after putting in 250+ rounds, I could not disagree more. I am very familiar with RM after being VERY FAMILIAR with TGC. Now I am VERY familiar with both and I simply feel that RM far and away blows TGC out of the water in gameplay and interface and visuals. Where TGC blows RM out of the water in course creator and content and online play modes, especially TBMP. Once EA gets their online play modes updated and the new offline modes added to online play, TGC will only have number of courses and course creator as its trump card, IMO.

[shogunofharlem3]

I like the game but never purchased it but I have seen several people saying it is $16 may I ask where that sale is? I'll jump on it for sure.

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

Not really...you did a great job. I feel exactly the same way when I play any of EA's golf games. Really - you described it to a "t".

Thanks... I stated the way I perceive it, but I also recognize that there are lots of folks who like or expect the cut sequences. I'd just like to see options added to disable it in the interest of speeding up the game flow and making it feel less segmented.

Quote:

Curious, Onlooker - have you tried 3-click?

I played one hole with it just out of curiosity. It seemed like it was implemented about as well as any three-click mechanism I've tried, but 3-click hasn't floated my boat since I experienced True-Swing back in the late 90's, particularly with PGA Championship Golf '99. I'm so hooked on real-time, analog motion control swings that I can't give 3-click a fighting chance, although I tried valiantly for months with Perfect Golf.

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by DivotMaker

For your complaints about playing something scripted, RM is designed around TV PGA Tournament golf, therefore you see the reactions of the golfers quite a bit, just like the PGA TOUR on CBS, NBC, Foc, and Golf Channel. Is it intrusive and not highly polished? You could say that, but you can press the X button to move the game forward.

Yeah, you're right... I am asking for a bit too much to expect them to forego a lot of what they've paid a premium price for the rights to use. I am hitting the X button to fast forward where I can, which helps move the pace along, but I'd still like to save the system the trouble of loading the sequence to begin with.

Quote:

As far as the interface and its "highly intolerant control band", I would have agreed with you when the game was released, but after putting in 250+ rounds, I could not disagree more.

[I'll just paste in my reply to you on this from the other thread from which this discussion stems]

I'll admit that I'm not nearly as skilled a golf gamer as you. I've seen virtually no progress in coming to grips with finding the swing speeds and tempos that RM requires. It's embarrassing how many times I sit there trying to execute a swing and it will abort because I'm either too fast or too slow with my backswing and/or downswing. I'll suck just as badly at it 250 rounds from now as I do right now, based on my track record so far. What I'm hoping for is some interface HUD and presentation options that will take some of the distractions out of the way and compel me want to play 250 more rounds of RM.

I think we've reached an impasse where subjective preferences affect our perspectives to the extent that no matter how well either of us explains it, it's not going to change our or anyone else's opinion about how they experience it. It's one of those things you have to experience for yourself, the way I see it.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

It's embarrassing how many times I sit there trying to execute a swing and it will abort because I'm either too fast or too slow with my backswing and/or downswing.

See, this is what I did not like about the more recent EA golf games. In my opinion, there's clearly something wrong with the real-time swing mechanism if being off-tempo simply results in an aborted swing. I know it's a videogame and it's a function of the mechanism the game uses to simulate a golf swing, but there's virtually no one who, in the real world, if you handed them a golf club and told them to swing at a ball - even if the tempo was totally bad and the backswing/downswing were way, way off - almost no one would simply abort their swing mid-swing because of bad tempo (Charles Barkley excluded). The fact that this happens (not infrequently) means that something about the swing mechanism in the game is counter-intuitive or requires too much 'buy-in' from the user into the game's swing mechanism.

Anyway, it's good to see the game continuing to be supported by EA with content release. Hopefully they keep making things better over time.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

See, this is what I did not like about the more recent EA golf games. In my opinion, there's clearly something wrong with the real-time swing mechanism if being off-tempo simply results in an aborted swing. I know it's a videogame and it's a function of the mechanism the game uses to simulate a golf swing, but there's virtually no one who, in the real world, if you handed them a golf club and told them to swing at a ball - even if the tempo was totally bad and the backswing/downswing were way, way off - almost no one would simply abort their swing mid-swing because of bad tempo (Charles Barkley excluded). The fact that this happens (not infrequently) means that something about the swing mechanism in the game is counter-intuitive or requires too much 'buy-in' from the user into the game's swing mechanism. Anyway, it's good to see the game continuing to be supported by EA with content release. Hopefully they keep making things better over time.

Never once had an aborted swing......

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by DivotMaker

Never once had an aborted swing......

You're a heck of a lot better gamer than me then.... damn, this just makes me realize how bad I truly must suck. It happens to me 30 times or more per round!?