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What Rory McIlroy PGA Tour does, it generally does well. Unfortunately, the problem for the latest installment in EA Sports’ PGA Tour series, and the first since 1998 not to feature Tiger Woods as its namesake, is that it doesn’t do very much. For a series that waited two years after Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘14 to produce this game, the lack of overall content is startling.
At first glance, the game feels more like a demo than an actual full-retail release. There are woefully few courses in comparison to its predecessor – eight instead of twenty Augusta being the most obvious omission. This is boosted somewhat with the “fantasy courses”, which are not based on any real-world location, such as courses based on Battlefield 4’s Paracel Storm map, the Grand Canyon and a nightclub. Since the game’s release, there have been small steps taken to fix this issue, with EA putting out a new course as free DLC, but really it’s a case of too little, too late. The line-up of playable golfers is similarly embarrassing: gone are almost half of those playable in Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’14, including the women from the LPGA, the entire list of Legends from the previous games, and, rather amusingly, Tiger Woods himself. You are given the option of creating your own character in Career mode, similarly to FIFA, Madden, and NBA, but the system is years behind those other titles, with only eleven pre-set heads and three body types to choose from. Fewer options, in fact, than the last PGA Tour game. You can’t even add facial hair, for crying out loud. How are you meant to live vicariously through your in-game self now?
The entire Career mode fails to give you the sense that you’re actually, well, playing a career. Instead, the game simply transports you from one tournament to the next, without providing any real context or reward. You no longer have the ability to rise through the amateur tournaments into the PGA, or the option of playing the pre-tournament practice rounds in order to earn additional experience, leaving you with very little reason to actually play through the Career section. The worst part is that the game seems to know this, as the Career mode defaults to a “quick round” setting, reducing each tournament to a handful of holes per round rather than the full four rounds of 18, allowing you to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Career isn’t the only mode that disappoints, as the online options have also been slashed dramatically, and you can no longer create your own Country Club to share with friends. There isn’t even a replay option anymore, so you had better hold on tight to the memory of that spectacular hole-in-one you made on Hole 14, because you won’t be seeing it again.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any redeeming features. The game begins promisingly, with the Prologue – taking place in the final stages of the US open, accompanied by a voiceover by McIlroy – doing a great job at introducing you to the three new control systems. It also introduces you to the new Frostbite 3 engine-powered courses, which do look amazing, capitalising fully on the capabilities of current-gen consoles. The elimination of loading times between holes is an incredible edition, and the open-world nature of the courses also allows you to play from out of bounds when a shot goes astray, rather than just incurring the automatic stroke penalty from previous games – all serving to heighten the realism and immersion of the experience.
The Night Club Challenge, despite feeling more like a mobile game than one designed for a console, is a worthy edition and proves to be the most fun the game has to offer, making use of turbo boosts and portals to deliver a kind of high-tech crazy golf. With each of the 170 challenges having a three-star rating, and only taking a few minutes to complete, there are definite parallels to games like Angry Birds or Candy Crush. This does seem more than a little out of place in a PGA game, when so much of what was previously core-PGA content is missing. With plenty of crazy golf-style games already on the market, it’s baffling that they’d spend time developing this mode when so much else has been stripped away.
Rory McIlroy PGA Tour isn’t a bad game – it’s just a game that shouldn’t have been released for another year. “Golf without limits” the game’s tagline claimed. If only…
Reviewed on Xbox One. Also available on PS4
