She's not wrong. I do hate sport, I hate the weird tribalism it generates in a certain type of person. That's not to say I hate sports GAMES though and I've been known to play the heck out of stuff like FIFA, and I've loved a lot of the NHL games in the past too. So sports that interest me = I'm quite happy to play games based around.
Golf though? I mean aside from the stress-busting sessions I used to spend at a real actual driving range back in the 90s, and the odd potter around a crazy golf or putting range avec ma famille, I've never ventured onto a real golf course in my life.
This game would almost convince me I could do so though. To put it in context, the last golf game I bought was for the Nintendo Wii, probably all the way back in about 2007, and things have marched on a tad since then. The Wii version of EA's PGA golf series was actually good fun and a pretend form of exercise, but the graphics were appalling, and a lot of the time I was fairly sure the whole motion-sensing thing just added to the frustration rather than gave you any sense that you were actually 'golfin'.
So what are things like on the PS5? Well the PGA series (dropping Tiger Woods, probably because he's a bit of a wretch) has been retooled from the ground up with a whole new swing mechanic ('ark at me sounding like I know what I'm talking about) and delicious new graphics (the courses really do look stunning even if the player characters still look like they've been tazered rigorously). So let's dig in...
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| Some giant bloke menaces a bunch of tiny, tiny people with a gold club and a chunk of turf |
I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did, in fact straight off the bat (or club) the new swing mechanic, controlled by some deft movements with the left stick, really does reward the more skilled and steady-handed player with a nice predictable method of moving the ball towards its intended destination.
Wonky-handed players like me will very quickly discover that the 'sweet spot' on the swing meter is anything but, and you'll spend a lot of time trying to max out the swing power bar, sending your ball into space (or more likely, into a water or sand hazard) rather than satisfyingly into the cup.
Once you get the hang of it though, you can pull off some spectacular shots and putts. For some reason I seem to enjoy long putts more than any other aspect of the game. Seeing a long put drop satisfyingly into the cup, even if it's for par or (in my case) a bogey or double bogey is immensely rewarding.
Powerful fairway shots are also fun to attempt, as is catering for the wind and other natural factors. It's quite amusing to send a ball into a crowd and watch individual crowd members either flinch convincingly, or just stand there like sphinxes, depending on the game's whims.
On PS5 you've got a choice of performance or graphics modes (the latter actually works just fine on a standard PS5, the former really makes things look horrible, muddy and ugly but if you're OK with a 30 fps graphical enhancement mode, you'll be fine).
As I said earlier, the courses look truly spectacular:
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| Ooh, that's a nice course, be a shame if someone came along and mangled it with a club! |
..and, surprisingly for an EA game (live service / being connected insistence annoyance notwithstanding) there's a whole lot of game in here for the entry price (which for me was a shade over 20 quid - a bargain at that price!)
Once you start chugging away at career mode you'll start to really build your golfer's skills and confidence. One thing that did annoy me is that the game doesn't give you much in the way of a tutorial. Sure there are training bits and bobs but these don't actually TELL you anything, just give you practice venues to try each training challenge on (unless I'm missing something).
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| Like playing in the sand? You will do this, a lot! |
There are also various quick play and online modes to round the whole package off, so it's pretty good value for an EA game. I just wish they'd provide offline modes (in fact hopefully if the UK law gets their way, offline modes will need to be included in all live-service games, because quite often when I was connected to Wi Fi, the game had a horrible habit of dropping my connection to EA and dumping me back out to the main menu - but I suspect that's more a 'me' problem than a 'service' problem).
One thing I didn't expect with this game was the level of addiction. It's ridiculously addictive. You find yourself playing late into the night, just wanting to polish off one more round under par, or desperately trying to stop your player from yeeting the bloody ball off into the rough every time they're trying to make just a delicate little chip shot onto the green. It probably helps that the commentary is quite salty most of the time, there's nothing like a broad New Zealand accent telling you that you're absolutely bloody rubbish and that shot was terrible to really make you want to up your game.
Overall this is one heck of a good golf game, almost tempting me to don some ridiculous trousers and shoes and step onto a real golf course (though I suspect that even with a ton of swing practice, I'd never get the ball more than a yard off the tee if I was stupid enough to do this).
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