Rory McIlroy PGA Tour may not win any awards for visuals, but it’s a solid experience in the gameplay department with flexible controls, entertaining modes and enough depth to keep you going for awhile.
No Tiger, no party? Not really, since Rory Mcllroy is still a good golf game and the best one on the market. Unfortunately, it's also a big waste of potential, since it's a very traditional product that stays true to its roots.
I absolutely love this game, Its just what the next gen needs, a decent golf game. There is lack of character customization etc and yes they have took a lot of modes out from the old ones. I am thoroughly enjoying it, Its fun on Multiplayer playing with your friends, There is also fun challenges to do. There has been some glitches i have come across, But hopefully they will get fixed.
The gameplay is perfect, we now have seventeen courses, and the graphics are good. For twelve of the queens pounds, happy days. It's fast to play, challenging and good for a quick dip or a tour.
It delivers a cleaner, breezier simulated golf experience that runs more quickly and looks lovely – especially during those morning rounds – without losing the series’ robust core mechanics...However, the overhaul has come at the cost of significantly reduced content and some missing features.
Don't let the fresh new franchise face and the Frostbite screens fool you. Rory McIlroy's has applied some serious back-spin to this once features-rich series. Budget buy this duff. [October 2015, p71]
The core game mechanics and systems are as solid as ever for the most part, but the game engine is wobbly and the sheer lack of content is just impossible to ignore. [Issue#260, p.70]
Whether you want to call it a shank, a duff, or a whiff, all that really matters is that Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is a poor effort from a series that was looking to make a splash in its generational debut.
After a two year break, EA Sports makes it's way back on the green with the release of McIlroy PGA Tour. If you are a big fan of golfing games like myself, this is welcome news. My very first golfing game was simply titled Golf, which was released in 1984 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
This game was built completely new from the ground up for the Xbox One and PS4 systems using the Frostbite Engine. This engine has been used in making games like Mass Effect and Battlefield, but it is the first time it has been used in making a sports title. You can really tell the difference the Frostbite Engine made in this me. If you do a side by side comparison with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, which was released two years ago, the difference is night and day. Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR looks absolutely amazing. Little things you may have never noticed before in a golf game will now stand out and catch you eye like never before.
It's a fun casual sports game with nice visuals and gameplay. The downside of this game to me is it doesn't have the best replay value. If you mastered the older versions of the game, this is a piece of cake. I can pretty easily shoot a mid-50s round after about 5-10 hours with the game. I know I can customize gameplay to make it harder, but who wants to pay $60 to design their own game? And as some of the other reviewers mentioned, it's missing some features, and there are other criticisms I'm not going to rehash here. But overall it's a pretty fun casual game, and I don't regret my purchase. It's just not a game you're going to be super excited about.
Since I'm mainly about gameplay, that will be the emphasis for my review. If you're expecting this to be Tiger Woods PGA Tour 16, you're gravely mistaken. Since the announcement for the game last year at E3, the game was being built from the ground up using the Frostbite 3 engine (which mainly is used for the Battlefield series). Historically speaking, when you have a game start anew engine-wise, that typically means there will be setbacks (ie Madden 06 on 360, PES 2014 with the Fox Engine implementation). Rory Mcilroy PGA Tour is not exempt from this rule either.
In regards of the swing mechanics, they're very straight forward for all 3 types. I personally enjoy the Tour difficulty level, but the Arcade or the classic 3-click method all will give you a generally clean swing with a moderate amount of forgiveness when it comes to making a mistake on a swing off the tee or on the fairway. Don't get it twisted though, if you don't have the attributes (generally when building up your career player) and you swing incorrectly or it's off at times, you'll under/overshoot the target and can land in the rough, water, or clean out of bounds. I also like the ability to customize the control scheme for not only the camera view and swing with either the left or right analog stick, but also what visual aids & boosts (ie: manual spin) to keep on or off.
Like I initially stated, with a new beginning means that while there are great things with having a new engine (ie: short load times, no load time between courses, greater graphical fidelity & quality, crisper gameplay mechanics to an extent) there also shortcomings in comparison to what we've been accustomed to in the past. Initially, there are only 8 courses to start the game with. Lack of rain weather effects (which we've seen beautifully done in the Battlefield series on this Frostbite 3 engine). All the golfers have just about the same body type & look like a modified Battlefield character to a modest degree. My biggest gripe is that Augusta is missing from the game and "Simulation Mode" from TW14 was removed. Even with these aspects lacking, the closest competitor The Golf Club wasn't well received out the gate either and had multiple updates/patches (even recently added a season mode paid add-on to compete with EA's effort).
So with Mcilroy not being a yearly release, it'll be interesting to see what updates and content are given along the way. We already know that there will be 2 new courses between August to September (which are free btw), so that's great. If the update/patch treatment goes anywhere along the lines of what's been done with NBA Live & EA UFC (which also started with a new engine from the ground up), then once the updating is finished, this game could truly be poised and positioned to be even greater than any of its past predecessors.
I like how in the night golf challenges there's no consistency at all in level of difficulty. You can go from a hole that takes literally 1 shot and you have 3 stars to the next hole where you have to spend 30 min doing some BS that has nothing to do with golf to get 1 star. I'm glad I purchased this thinking it was a golf game then I end up playing some crazy version of Starfox where i am flying a golf ball around an entire course WTF EA?
Some years ago I played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 and loved it! The music when you loaded up the game, the sound effect when got a perfect swing, the audiovisual queue when you got a potential highlight shot, the new sponsors being presented in the tour mode by which you upgraded your character, some many things that kept you playing hour after hour. And I'm not even talking about all the minigames. This game was breathing atmosphere and made golf even more cool to me—I already loved the game of for all my life so yeah, but I realize this is what is needed for a game like this to liked by many people.
So I was browsing through the PlayStation Store and saw Rory Mcilroy PGA Tour and got nostalgic and decided to get it. After downloading in full anticipation I started the game and on the menu screen I was missing something why didn't I feel hyped as I did before playing Tiger Woods, was nostalgia a culprit in this. No, it was the music I was missing. what drives all the EA Sports games from the first screen are its music, it sets the vibe for the whole game, it even keeps on going when you finally decided to end your playing session to get some well-deserved sleep! I guess there was no budget for licensed music for this game, which should be no problem if you replace it with some good tracks, but alas this was not the case.
Despite the music, I wasn't yet thrown off in giving this game a try and started the Pro Tour mode. As in every Career Mode, I had to create a player. I was trying to make up for the game saying to myself this isn't so bad, but going through the eight presets I realized it was horrible. I don't know if you have seen Robocop by Paul Verhoeven. Six out of the eight presets looked like a guy from this movie. Due to the possible age difference, some will get this reference otherwise you will have something to do since you will probably pass on this game after this review and need another way to kill some time!
Ok, so after creating my character that would be more in its environment at a Lord of The Rings casting session then on a golf course I started my first tournament. The mechanics of this game were simply on target, nothing wrong with them. I was using the pro stick control and liked it. I teed off a few times getting good tee shots I thought, but I was missing feedback on a perfect tee shot, while this was so fulfilling recalling from my memory. This kind of things, in my opinion, make the game! Together with the focus when are about to make an awesome chipshot, which wasn't there when I recovered with a pretty awesome Eagle attempt on a messed up approach. No commentary, no replays, no celebration, nothing! My glorious moment was mashed into a pulp as if I was coached by a dad whose dream I was trying fulfill. If this was intentional, EA did a good job of making me feel like this.
Is Rory Mcilroy PGA Tour a horrible game? No, I don't think so, the game mechanics are still as awesome as they have ever been. The lack of game modes and the character creation can probably be attributed to the fact that EA had to migrate the game to the PlayStation 4 its architecture. Games like these start out small and with every version, the codebase expands as a library making it possible for the developers to create new variations. Going to a new architecture forces developers to rewrite all there code, this is what might have happened to this game as well. Hopefully, EA will give this game back what it deserves, because man, did I spend a lot of time with its predecessor. I'm expecting Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2014 to drop in the mail any minute, hoping to fulfill my hunger for nostalgia and creating some fresh for the future until EA drops a new PGA Tour that does live up to the expectations!
SummaryGameplay offers multiple ways to play, including arcade controls where the left stick is used to control power and accuracy, with the ability to add spin to the shot while the ball is in the air. In addition to the arcade controls, the return of 3-Click swings appeals to nostalgic gamers who prefer to set power and accuracy by tapping a ...