We are entering the most serious attempt to return golf to the video game, after years of ostracism.
More than 15 years, soon to be said, have passed since the supposed heyday of golf games. More than 15 years ago Electronic Arts joined the PGA Tour license and its then franchise player Tiger Woods. But annual delivery after annual delivery, its quality waned along with the interest of the players, until it was decided not to continue with the saga. HB Studios, which had already done collaborative work with the Californian giant, took over the reins of the franchise in 2014 with its The Golf Club and in 2018 2K would arrive to publish it. With this year’s installment, PGA TOUR 2K21 makes its transition to the 2K sports family official in the hope of giving fans of the sport an updated game that lives up to the times. And in a way it has been achieved.
The fundamentals works (and very well)
Of the set that makes up PGA TOUR 2K21, there are 3 large groups: the things that work very well, the things that have good potential and the things that need to improve. When we were at the game’s presentation a few weeks ago, the question that FreeGameTips asked the development team was the following: “After the arrival of 2K and seeing that the core of the game already worked in the previous The Golf Club, is it logical to think that a good part of the effort has been focused on the accessory part (presentation, production values, etc.)? ”. The answer was resounding: yes, indeed. Well, there is still a long way to go in that regard and it is without a doubt the part that looks the least in the title. And that’s because the bottom line, the core of what makes this game a good game of golf, works.
Above all, there are two vital points that must not fail: how the feeling of a match is transferred to the player – with all the possibilities that exist on the field – and that the physics of what we are seeing on the screen correspond with what happens in a real field. A humble 24 handicap like this writer who subscribes may reflect that he is not the best player in the world, but it is enough to be able to appreciate if what the game transmits to us is adapted, saving the distances, to what is experienced on the street or in the green and we were very satisfied in that regard. To the point that sometimes we have been more excited to complete a saving par on the 17th hole that, if we did not hole out, it complicated the classification at the end of the season than many of the sensations on the real course. And that, which reminds us a lot of the long nights we had spent tournament after tournament with the old Tiger Woods deliveries, is a very good sign.
For those who have never tried any of the 3 previous versions of The Golf Club, this is a golf simulator. Simulator compared to the EA versions, very well presented but also more arcade, and with the added value of not losing an iota of accessibility. New customization modes have been added to make the game experience to our liking although playing in “normal”, by default, it has seemed a bit simple. From the Pro, things are already starting to get tense because the swing has been remodeled (which will be something that we will need to master as soon as possible) and you need a mouse control and a fairly precise timing to start nailing those birdies .
And since golf is one of the most complex sports out there, the number of options available during the game can seem overwhelming to the novice player. Nothing could be further from the truth because PGA Tour 2K21 is, in itself, a gigantic encyclopedic compendium to understand how and why things work on a golf course. From the different inclinations of the driver to the differences between a chip and a flop, how to counteract the wind by changing the angle of attack to the ball, why a hybrid allows you to get better off the grass or understand the particularities of the green (that green carpet where from time to time they win but mostly games are lost) … everything is perfectly represented in the game and their behavior is consistent with reality. This game does not teach you to play golf but it does teach you to understand about golf.
To all this is added a great physics of the ball and a good representation of the fields, at least on paper. It is true that we have never had the opportunity to play on any of the 15 licensed courses, but fortunately the bird’s-eye comparisons give us a very rough idea of the high fidelity of their digital counterparts. We have never had the feeling that anything that happened in the game was an invention or a mistake; every time we have sent a ball into the water or the sand it could always be attributed to human error and that is fundamental. This does not mean that the game is not frustrating at times: on a couple of occasions the flag played a trick on us on a putt when we could not remove it, for example, but as a general rule great care has been taken to ensure that the representation of the act of playing is clear and honest.
One of the things that we were most curious about was the subject of the rivalries that are forming as we compete on the Tour. The game is creating our own nemesis within the classification that we will be fighting virtually throughout the race. This is in some way part of the progression system that accompanies us in the campaign mode, together with the unlocking of sponsors and the possibility of changing clubs with different characteristics from different brands. Although a value highly appreciated by beginners is usually how permissive a club is with swing errors, as we perfect our skills and advance it will be possible to acquire material that enhances the distance or the effect that the ball acquires at the sacrifice of others. qualities. There is no club or set of clubs that provides complete net advantages over the set that is given to us at the beginning, but we can adjust our bag to our particular style of golf.
A potential to discover
Career mode is the main mode in which we will spend most of the time when we play alone; remember but it has nothing to do with the one shared by other 2K franchises like NBA 2K20, for example, and it comes to be a somewhat simplified version of a season of the PGA Tour. We can choose the level of professionalism in which we start and quickly climb the steps until we play chestnuts against Justin Thomas or Jim Furyk among others. But if we want to play against other people, online societies are the black hole where hours and hours of sleep will fall. At the time of writing this review, the official society only had 11 members, something logical since it is prior to the launch of the game. Societies basically function as hubs where you can organize events, competitions, rankings … and why not find other golfers to share games with. But, like everything else, it is a functionality that depends a lot on who and how it is organized.
The second thing that we think has a lot of possibilities is the field builder. PGA Tour 2K21 licenses 15 real courses and the rest are created with the same tools with which each user can make their creations, following the recommendations of the program or editing holes from scratch. Again, at the time of publishing this review, there was no field created by users but if we can extrapolate from other versions, there is a practically endless sea of possibilities where the most creative minds can show off their skills to enjoy and enjoy the rest of users. Unfortunately, this field is one where we especially lack expertise and with good judgment we have let others shine in this regard. Both companies and publisher would be what should extend the useful life of the game beyond what it sells at launch, waiting for whether the fact of officially passing to the 2K nomenclature this franchise will become annual, biannual or it will be a base on which to expand.
Great room for improvement
And as we mentioned before, there are a series of characteristics that need the attention of the developer team with different degrees of urgency. One of the most striking is that, even though there are 12 licensed professional golfers we can play against, we can never manage them. This is something that has caught our attention and although it is not capital – and surely due to some licensing issue with the PGA Tour – it did have us rummaging through the options because it seemed so strange to us that we feared that we were going through tall. It would be like buying a FIFA and never being able to control Messi, or buying an NBA and not being able to shoot with Lebron or Harden. We know that pros exist because from time to time they appear on the leaderboards or in sequence during a game of a spectacular play that happened on another hole, and nothing more.
Technically the game complies and the designs of the fields are very successful but there are details, such as the public, that completely take you out of a situation because of how poorly represented they are. Again, it is not something that is part of the heart of the game, but it is part of the clothing, of those production values in which a good part of the budget we were told was invested. Commentators Luke Elvy and Rich Beem add color to the broadcasts (although we preferred the Gary McCord and David Feherty duo better) especially during the first few pitches, until the comments were repeated one after another. After a few hours it is usual, at least in our case, to put a playlist on Spotify or YouTube and turn off the sound completely. This generally does not speak well of the soundtrack of a title but, as we say, it is common practice for many users (including us) in this type of game.
CONCLUSION
We have been very satisfied with this PGA TOUR 2K20 and it can be said that there is no better golf simulator on the market right now. Sometimes it seems that it could be polished a little more, that we are facing a Porsche Carrera that they have left unfinished, but the game sensations are difficult to improve. With tremendously solid foundations, a route ahead with good prospects and the possibility of creating and playing the courses created by the users, this is a title that, if we like the sport of golf or good simulators in general, guarantees long hours of fun, both locally or online with friends. Hopefully in future installments we can enjoy the highest level of refinement that other 2K franchises enjoy and we could be ahead of the best sports simulator in general. Hb Studios is on the right track.
THE BEST
- The representation of the fields
- The physics of the ball
- Online companies, creation of fields
- Rivalries and career mode
WORST
- The technical aspect is not pointer
- Fields, players and the possibility of playing with them are missing.
Very good
A game with a remarkable finish that we will enjoy and remember. A good buy, highly recommended for lovers of the genre. It is well cared for at all levels.
