Released yesterday, really disappointed with it.
Posted this review on the TGC forums (very long, don't feel like it'll be there for very long before it gets deleted)...
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Hey guys.
I'm an avid golf gamer, from the days of good old Links to now. But nobody wants to hear a year of backstory...
I felt inspired to post because I'm not seeing my personal viewpoint represented by anybody else, and I'd like to give my feedback so it can (hopefully) be taken into serious consideration by the developers (who, unlike other devs, seem to actually read and respond to their community's thoughts).
Coming from any other modern sports game in the same price bracket to this (and I'm not exclusively talking about big EA games - the most recent example I can think of is F1 2018), I've got to be honest here. It's a
pretty nasty shock.
With the absolute greatest of respect, in comparison to every other console sports game I've played, this feels like an "early access" title. Great gameplay or otherwise, I feel thoroughly ripped off given the price.
1) In the first round I played (Web.com tour on a TPC course), my introduction to the game - I couldn't get over just how bad the graphics are for a game I've just forked over £45 for.
Yes, lighting has improved, and from some very select angles you see something that would make a good screenshot. But the majority of the time it just isn't very good. These are just a few examples of what I mean...
After every shot, during the ball flight, there's a massive (and impossible to ignore) hitch in the frame-rate that's been there since game one. Watching streams of the game before it launched, this stuck out like a sore thumb.
There are some buildings in the backdrop that just look like giant white cubes - and this is on an official course. Your eye can't help but be drawn to them, the models are so poor. There's no finesse or photorealism to them whatsoever.
But worst of all,
this is LITERALLY how bushes are put together and how they appear at close range - in a game from 2018, running on a PS4 Pro:
Again, I'm not exaggerating or being nasty here, bushes are literally just a few pieces of flat textures shoved together in an asterisk-style shape. That wobble in the wind.
Even the golf ball has a halo around it like you've developed glaucoma whilst playing - and I'm sure turning off "bloom" fixes it but if that's your response, you're missing my point entirely (same if you say "it's a small team").
The package, in terms of graphical complexity, just screams "indie", but the price isn't indie - and this isn't game one, it's
game three. You can't produce something so far behind the visual authenticity of the Rory golf games and charge the same price for it - not without guys like me feeling thoroughly short-changed, anyway.
Not that it matters now... You've got my money. Speaking of which; I was one of the guys who said I'd pay for DLC courses with them being official and scanned for accuracy - but let me tell you, there's
absolutely no way I would now. They look and feel no different to community courses in my eyes.
2) I've been praying for a career mode. I don't care that it's unlicensed (i.e. all fake names) - even though it seems insane that a PGA license doesn't grant you permission to use PGA player names - but after I've sat for 6-7 hours and painstakingly recreated the competitors from the real tour, why can't I share this work with others?
If we can share courses, why can't we share golfers? If there's a licensing reason behind this (i.e. PGA wouldn't allow it), what is the point in the license, other than for the licensed courses which - again, I've got to be frank - look and feel no different to the community courses, as far as I'm concerned?
This isn't even my biggest bugbear - nor the fact that I don't think we can alter player abilities (so if I insert e.g. Tiger Woods, I can't make him any better or worse than any other player -
let alone make his short game or long game any different to any other player like you can in Links)...
But I have to appear on the leaderboards etc.
as my gamertag? You've gone all-in on licenses and "authenticity", then when you look at the scores (after every single hole) you've got - "B. Barker, N. Davies, G0LFER4LYFE84, T. Thomas"?
3) Gameplay. Yes, it's the best gameplay out there (and it's why I play the game). But I would argue this in no way represents a significant upgrade (and not one worth a whole new game and a price increase).
My first round, on the hardest club settings, I finished +2. It feels - and okay, I'm making a prediction here rather than stating a fact - like I'm going to be shooting silly scores in no time at all.
It feels like the only thing that makes the game challenging* is ridiculous wind conditions, or wedge shots that roll for days - hence why setting the PGA Tour difficulty to "very hard" just sets every fairway and green to very firm / fast.
If the only way you can make the game challenging is to essentially cheat you by making you play golf on an ice rink... It's not a great simulation, surely?
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(*Or alternatively, removing green grids etc., which I personally think is madness - you're looking at a flat image, you need assistance to see breaks.)[/size]
I've not joined a society yet so I dread to think of the kinds of low scores people are already posting - yet it seems like the attitude towards this is that "it doesn't affect you so why do you care".
Can we even lock societies to just the hardest clubs yet? To make it as realistic as possible, and as fair as possible?
If you're playing in a society / tournament where every round you've got someone hitting scores
not even the pros can manage... It's just not golf, is it? It's super-robo-impossible golf. You expect that of Mario Golf, and EA's golf games too (because realism was never their biggest aim). But I thought TGC was supposed to be different.
Overall...
I just really cannot accept that this is a big enough change from TGC2, in any area (including gameplay), to NOT ONLY be an entirely new edition, but to be a FULL-PRICE TITLE. Sorry, but it's not in the same league as any other console sports title that costs this much money.
If the price increase is to pay for the PGA branding, I'm sorry, but it's absolutely 100% not worth it in my eyes, given what little it's added to the product (official courses that I don't think are any different to the others, and a career mode that, although
much appreciated, would be just the same without the branding).
I'm hoping for lots of patches that upgrade things but if this entry constitutes a new release, I can't see there being any development that won't just become TGC 2020. But I won't be buying it based on my experience here.
All of this is absolute genuine feedback - if I was a troll, I would have posted a couple of lines and a few insults. I hope it's taken in the spirit in which it is intended (constructive criticism, from a disappointed gamer).
