EA Sports PGA TOUR Impressions (Console)

[bigkev]

They probably went that way because it's very easy to go in the rough with the random in the game when you have basic skill and spec. That large landing zone circle covers the rough on both side of the fairway. I just played the 4 holes daily with my new golfer with no skill and spec, missed 2 fairways for no reason. A lot of users went to HB/2K because they hate random so much in this game. I can just imagine if rough was punishing on top of it.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Honestly, neither of the PGA Tour games behaves like "real golf". One has RNG with rough that has little to no effect and forces you to pick up after triple bogey, and the other has golf balls that slow down the green speed and has hickory golf clubs that can hit the ball 350 yards.

These are really meant to be professional golf sims, not actual golf sims.

Also, I am still a bit surprised that no EA rep has said any more about disappearing scores in the daily and weekly tournaments. Sounds like it's still happening. I have kind of stopped doing them for the time being, except for the free daily.

[dubcity]

Quote: Originally Posted by MrArlingtonBeach

Honestly, neither of the PGA Tour games behaves like "real golf". One has RNG with rough that has little to no effect and forces you to pick up after triple bogey, and the other has golf balls that slow down the green speed and has hickory golf clubs that can hit the ball 350 yards. These are really meant to be professional golf sims, not actual golf sims.

Yeah. 2K has animations that have been broken for over a year, unrealistic ball roll through the rough, tons of bugs, etc. My problem with the EA game is that it has gotten stale quick. 2K is stale in other ways, but course creation has papered over that to keep its community somewhat active. It also benefits from low expectations.

EA wasn't poorly received from a critical or financial standpoint, so it's not Rory 2.0 as I've heard people say. It's a simple pick up and play golf game that relies on graphics and licenses for the most part.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

I feel that "realistic" golf ball physics fall somewhere in between what 2K has and what EA does.

In 2K, you can only get some backspin if you add full loft with the shot-shaping stick to a pitch shot with a wedge, and even then it's not all that much most of the time.

In EA, especially on softer courses, you can get backspin for days that will run your wedge shots off the green and some 30 yards away, even if you don't adjust the shot-shaping stick. I played the daily today at Quail Hollow, and approach shots ran off 3 of the 4 greens I played - even hitting the ball past the flag and using the spin boost since it was on "Pro" difficulty to actually add topspin to the ball. Didn't work.

I at least like that EA offers a variety of courses in terms of terrain variability - links play so differently than Florida-based tracks. In 2K, all you get is some slight differences between fairways and greens that are "Soft", "Moderate", "Firm", etc.

But neither seems to actually capture what kinds of golf ball reactions you see on a real course.

[bigkev]

Any sand or gap wedge, I have to adjust the loft box to low on a finesse shot if I want to have control on most greens. On a good wind from behind, I don't adjust anything most of the time.

[scagwi]

Let me put it another way.

It’s like fans of a driving game asking the developer to make the pavement actually interact with the tires correctly

Of course…it should be one of the first things that gets worked on for a proper driving game

As many of you are correctly pointing out, neither one of the mainstream golf games does a particularly good job on some of this basic stuff

It’s pretty disappointing that this is where things are at in 2024

I would’ve guessed differently based on where we were 15 years ago.

[jbd345]

Quote: Originally Posted by scagwi

Let me put it another way. It’s like fans of a driving game asking the developer to make the pavement actually interact with the tires correctly Of course…it should be one of the first things that gets worked on for a proper driving game As many of you are correctly pointing out, neither one of the mainstream golf games does a particularly good job on some of this basic stuff It’s pretty disappointing that this is where things are at in 2024 I would’ve guessed differently based on where we were 15 years ago.

Considering we are year 4 of this generation, you’re not wrong. I for one, expected a much more graphical leap. Sports games in general still look cartoonish.

[bigkev]

You won't get that big graphical leap with 2K when they're still making the game for old generation consoles. 2K25 will again not look much different than TGC.