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| Not much has changed in Rory's brave new world |
ELEVEN years after his debut as the face of EA Sports' golf game, Tiger Woods has finally got the boot.
So what's new in Rory's brave new world? Well, not too much really. There's fewer courses and fewer pro golfers to play with in 2015 compared to 2014. Which is a bad start. straight away you fear EA may be planning to bolt on some downloadable content to this title.
But, you could say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And that looks to be EA's line of thought here.
Tiger Woods' PGA Tour games have always been good, throwaway fun that will get serious playing time during the first few weeks or so and then disappear onto the shelf, often never to be seen again.
Once you learn how to play the courses, putt, chip and power up drives to smash them down the fairway as straight as an arrow 99 times out of 100 the fun, and challenge, goes.
While there is a very samey feel here are some interesting new elements.
Career mode has a feature which allows you to play the traditional mode of all four rounds of 18 holes, or you can select to play the four most important holes of each round.
If you select the quick-fire option the game obviously progresses quite rapidly and it also means the holes you do play are that much more important. No more winning by 20 shots and much more pressure on the shots you do take.
The Night Club Challenge mode is good fun and the crotchety Pops Masterson guides you through the various levels.
Neon lights and rocket-style boosts form the backbone of the skills-based challenges which you can easily while away a few hours mastering.
There are three different control schemes which make the game progressively more difficult. The classic three-click swing is joined by an arcade-style swing, which uses the analogue stick can be mastered fairly easily, and a harder Tour setting which prevents zoom and has no assists.
That might sound a bit intimidating to the first time user but Rory guides you through the various controls and styles with a pretty comprehensive tutorial that culminates with the last few shots of the US Open.
But once you get past that the game starts to unravel. There are just eight authentic courses and four made-up ones compared to the 20 on last year's version.
Next up is the threadbare selection of golfers. Many of the games stars are absent, noticeably the deposed Mr. Woods himself, and bar two fictional characters there are no female golfers so play with. Criminal when compared to the addition of woman's teams to EA's forthcoming FIFA 16.
At least you can create you own female pros but as with their male counterparts the lack of variety and options leads to some very strange looking golfers.
Career mode has always been the most enjoyable part of the PGA Tour series and while the option to play four holes per round does progress things quickly, if you wish to do so, the game meanders from one competition to the next and you're left scratching your head as to where you are, what time of the season it is, how well you're doing and how important each tournament is.
But, whether you know what town your in or not the graphics are pretty impressive, especially the water.
Some parts of the courses look pretty flat and the career pro players look strange, as mentioned earlier, but overall the limited courses available do look good and some of the more cinematic cutaways are getting pretty close to the real thing. It's just a shame Augusta National isn't available because you would have liked to see what they could have done with it.
The commentators guide you through the nuances of the course which is worth a watch first time round. The overall game is much slicker and there are less loading pages, but you do have to put up with cutaway shots of player reactions and sometimes the crowd noise doesn't exactly replicate what you might expect to hear during a real tour event. Average approaches met with raucous ovations.
Overall it's more of the same for PGA Tour despite the change of name and face on the cover. The reduction in courses and players is a concern but if you want an updated version of the franchise it'll certainly fit the bill.
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