Aristo wrote:It's not intuitive, but I'm totally used to the putting now, and it's not as bad as it seemed at first.
I wanted it to be more intuitive from a feel standpoint. I got a bit more accustomed to what it was looking for in my 10 hour trial, it still feels quirky to me. I've got three things that have to happen before I buy this game, and one of them (removal of the fill meter from the HUD for all shot types) will probably help me with the quirkiness of the putting interface and perhaps restore some sense of feel to it. I try to ignore the meter but it usually seems to catch the corner of my eye and become a distraction.
It was an easy-ass course, but I just nailed a slew of one-putts on the Lighthouse course for the Daily tourney, finishing 5 under with Speith. I hit a lot of bunkers, end left many approaches shot of the green. The one putts made up for that.
I like Lighthouse Pointe, with a couple of holes being borderline over-the-top and I especially like The Wetlands. It's refreshing to know that EA Sports can create a realistic, playable fictional course.
At this point, the gameplay is no longer an big issue for me. There are little things I wish were different, but it's not affecting my enjoyment when on the course. I'd give the game an 8 out of 10 for its gameplay alone.
I'm not up to your point on the gameplay. I sort of get the hook from the scoring challenge, but the challenge isn't rooted enough in gameplay that I feel is quite as analogous to the sport on which it is based. I'd give it a 6 out of 10 right now, based on my experience with it on the XB1 during Early Access. Aren't you playing it on a PS4? I can see where that might have some effect on how the game feels, I already know from three independent sources that it changes the way the game looks and to a lesser degree, animates.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of missing features and some really horrible career design that justifies the low scores it is getting. It's good enough to be a solid next gen golf game for me, but it needs patching and some serious content updates. And I don't just mean courses.
I'm shocked at the number of missing features and the career mode is so empty... it's a shame because that's the only way to build your player attributes!? To your second point, the game engine does seem to be solid enough on which to build a next-gen golf game; I think they've still got a ways to go to realize its potential. I'm concerned about their ability to get there based on so many basic elements that were left out. How can you not give users the option to turn off HUD devices, post shot celebrations, cut-views to your golfer and caddy walking down the fairway together, no live, hole-by-hole scoring leaderboard in between holes in online and career mode tournaments, no replay, can't make worse than a double-bogey in online play and double par in offline play (phew!), just to name a few.
