Recent reviews by McFly

UPDATE: I keep coming back and trying to like 2K but I just truly hate the swing mechanics of HBS games. I am a damn good golfer, I used to play golf games to hype me up, to feel like I'm playing on amazing courses. But these games swing mechanics are just so un-like actual golf that it makes me sick, so much effort into something that is so far off base from golf. I actually feel like exposing myself to these developers idea of a golf swing actually makes me a worse player, it's that f***in bad. These shlubs can sit in their gamer chairs, contorting their hands and arms, completely circumventing mechanics to achieve good shots and rail about how good this is, but it's not. It's garbage and needs to be completely reworked. Sick of buying the same sh!t over and over.

ORIGINAL:
It's the same thing. They tried to fix some things but what resulted was just as shoddy. The tempo mechanics of this game are a joke, the more of a real life golfer you are, the further from golf this games swing mechanics feels. I used to play TW games before my golf matches and it energized and pumped me up, this game makes me just want to not play golf at all. Years, we've begged they let a pro golfer take the lead and make the changes needed to make this game actually feel like what it's supposed to be, instead it's just people who don't understand the game, people who don't ask the right questions and don't know or care what people want. The items available are more abundant than PGA Tour, but far more pathetic. An embarrassing number of clubs to choose from, an inability to select 3 irons for sets THAT DO OFFER 3 IRONS in real life, if ordered. Tee's still too high for irons. Absolutely no love for mini golf course creation. Noticeable back-end factors that contribute to the results you get during rounds, impractical AI leaderboard shuffling...just a crap golf game...but it's the only golf game with people playing for unfortunately it's the best you got. Don't buy...maybe buy if $15...don't expect the next installment to be any better.

If you played Rory McIlroy's PGA Tour, you know exactly how bad things were for the series before they shut it down. This is completely refined and ready to take on more simulator type of gameplay. It being their return, there are some bugs, but the swings look light years better than 2K. The currency earning feels more flushed out, in comparison, with timed items circulation the shop for you to make sure to check on new gear daily. This is currently a bit repetitive, but a solid foundation for better gear options. We have Titleist/Vokey/Scotty and Miura, not to mention the legitimate best courses in the world, finally.

The downsides are; no course builder, intensely limited character customizer, lack of custom swing builder and some minor knit picks. If you NEED golf games, it's a must. If you want it but don't want to drop full price, I'd recommend whenever and for whatever discount you can.

My recommendation for future DLC/Installments/Updates:
- A Hub area, like a large course and pro shop for people to mingle around and buy gear, challenge others to challenges on the putting green, practice bunker area and driving range, as well as the 9-holes that Hub area would have, where people can walk right onto the course and watch. Also a shuttle pick-up where players can join a lobby to build groups and "shuttle" to other courses for matches. They would be dropped off there after the round, carrying their bag. This is similar to what 2K did with NBA.

- Completely blown out character customizer that we all expect. This should be obvious.

- Swing customizer. Be able to choose default swings and other pro swings to then be able to modify certain spots of the swing to give your golfer their own unique look. The swing mechanics stay the same, but a player could make their swing look however they wanted; squatty and powerful, stack and tilt, smooth and slow, mechanical like Tiger and so on. Choose 9/12/3/12 o'clock positions where you can slide hips, shoulder, head, weight and hands around to position them at these angles and then have the system basically "motion tween" between these chosen positions.

- Custom Course and Mini Putt Builder. Something low key popular on 2K are the mini putt golf courses people build and share. Along with a course builder, include a large amount of resources specifically for building a mini putt putt course. Windmills, ramps, legit bumper borders, drop tubes and so on. Let people blow it out and have fun, place bets.

- Once a course builder is established, let people submit 9-hole course designs specifically to be chosen to become the next months Home (Hub) course, allowing people to interact with it, reward the winner with currency and hold a tournament on the last day of the month, utilizing that personal name (or handle) as the tournament name. Give them the ability to choose "Home Course Build" where it designates off the area needed for the pro shop and parking lot and then lets them build the course around it, utilizing a checklist of things needed for the Hub.

- Like 2K shoe builder, let players unlock a custom clothing line builder where they can use templates to make or upload their own designs and brand it with a personal logo. Let people vote for new stock by choosing clothing designers to be added to the store rotation.

Actually I can go on forever, I may just do an episode of the podcast about what I hope to see,

Nothing they can do by this point to help this game. It's a buggy mess that is not worth the money. At all. BF1 and BFV have higher player counts after over a year of this game being out as they scramble to make it playable. Skip. HARD pass

I dunno...it just doesn't feel right. It's the right price and it's worth it to support the love letter to the original, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I think the low res retro style of the original and better sound track made it a lot more enjoyable. It might just be the whole, not living up to the nostalgia, thing. However, I still recommend it for the price.

I remember getting Ark when it first dropped in Early Access. Looking back, the experience is very very much the same. They reached a point where what they had would "work", just not that great. Rather swing back around to tighten everything up and polish gameplay, they just left it and started focusing on expansions. It was insane to see an early access game actually offer paid expansions and the negative affect it had on gaming is one part of the entire rise in exploitative practices in the industry that's an issue now.

At the time, it was a notable entry into a relatively niche genre of open world survival games. Now, it feels like an outdated experience that the devs knew functioned sub-par, but opted to pump out easy content they could earn a profit from. Instead of reworking things, they directed their attention to getting the broken game onto consoles. No matter how many expansions they've released, they've never gone back to revamp movement, combat, dino interacting or any of the key KEY aspect of just the gameplay itself. Yes, dinosaurs cool, build house cool, but it feels like ass. And the dinosaurs lumber around, completely unaware of their surroundings, getting stuck on/in structures, nonsensical movement patterns, random dismounting...the list of things wrong with just basic function is insane.

If you can swoop it up for free or via Game Pass, have at it. PvP servers, you'll be raided at night, usually by cheaters. PvE servers and you still have to deal with nearly every aspect of gameplay feeling 60% complete.

This ♥♥♥♥ is the lamest MMORP to come out in quite a while. About 20% of what BDO has to offer. Using that as a comparison because it's Bluehole and Kakao, they should know what people would want by this point and far less content is not it.

Don't bother.

my fiance and I have two accounts on the same computer, two copies of the game and the save data doesn't differentiate. I know it's a good game, I just can't play it without affecting her save data. Kinda lame.

EDIT: This was a pretty decent game so I decided to check in on it, you know, put a bit of my 625hrs of gameplay to use and WHOOPS...all progress is just gone. I'm not even bothering contacting support or trying to deal with it because I quit because of unbelievably bad paywall so I know there's absolutely no reason for me to both. I suggest you do the same.

-----------------------------------------

The game comes off like it's a cheap attempt at making a Black Desert Online, a lot of design similarities but without the deep detail and immersive open world. Once you get rolling with it, you see where they redirected all their effort and it pays off, making this game a very fun and deep experience that can be had without spending a dime.

Rather have a subscription service to play, they offer one that gives very specific benefits for like $10/mo, more beneficial to people in end game content but even than still not dramatically worth it. Even less worth it than the month-long buffs you can buy on BDO. The only difference is that items for leveling ARE sold in the store and does benefit players looking to get OP for PVP. BDO offers very little in terms of benefiting other than like skills. However, open world random PVP is not a thing in this game so you don't have to worry about it negatively effecting a non-paying player in any way other than that person leveling faster.

Dungeons/Raids/Bosses are epic, much more epic than a game like BDO and a lot more dramatic than most you experience in WoW. With the art style and the epicness of the raids you experience, this easily beats BDO by a mile in regards to that category of gameplay. The creativity is off the charts.

Voice acting is atrocious for NA/EU. It's as bad as you'd expect laid over a relatively unlame story plot. Boat travel is laughable, has very little to offer and is something you will use often. You'll find yourself hunting upgrade mats, mounts and achievements by island hopping and keeping an eye out for timed islands that pop up periodically.

You can burn a lot of time so why not, it's free. If you want to spend money, you can be a whale, it all works.

UPDATE: 3/7/22
OK enough time has passed to come back and make some additions. It's no secret by now that this game was fumbled pretty bad after launch. Taking one event that could be done in a couple hours, breaking it in to 3 parts and spreading it out over months. This was not 3 phases where they added more and more, it was one pool of items to earn that you were just blocked from earning after a certain point, forcing you to wait.

No Forge, that's a big deal. Mechanics have seem to have gotten worse and dsync from server netcode is HORRIBLE. It's not ready for any type of esports play and it's pathetic there were teams made before the game even released.

It's obvious by this point that we've all been fooled. We think games as a service is a new concept, they simply renamed Early Access. It operates absolutely no differently, in any example, in any game. If it's a game as a service, it's always hollow and empty when it launches, broken and nearly unplayable. The service is them going from Early Access to official release.

Get this, it's whatever and might have potential. But the way they're handling it, it will take years for this game to be where we all expected it to be. They have so much backend work to get the game to actually play well and reliable. Be advised, the effort feels lazy. There is no attempt at giving customers options in cosmetics. You dive into MCC and there is such variety that it's the polar opposite of this game. People pay $15 to look the same as everyone else because it's the only skins in the game. Rather make everyone look different in cool ways, it makes the tools stand out even more. You know they paid money for what they have, if not, you have what they have. It sucks and is not how this should have been handled. You want to earn and unlock and separate yourself from others base don your level of commitment. You even get the same items come back around on the store so taking advantage of a cool skin in the store is still pointless because someone later down the line will be able to get it anyways...possibly cheaper. The really sat down and said "ok, so, we'll charge for every piece of the armor. We also need to make different suits for the items to go on, but we'll not let them mix and match, so they have to keep buying. We'll also sell full skins for like $20...but those you can't change the pieces on." That was the literal train of thought.

Don't take this game seriously, don't play ranked, don't spend money. Just use it to run around and shoot ♥♥♥♥, that's it.


RELEASE:
This is a no-brainer. Runs well, a lot of custom stuff, feels awesome, closest to Halo Reach ever, minus some annoying buffs.