Sports video games generally tend to be more arcadey than simulation, with easy-to-learn standard mechanics that make the experience breezy off the bat while also having enough depth to appeal to competitive players. HB Studios The Golf Club series has actually regularly defied that mantra by welcoming the exacting challenges and unpredictability of golf given that its debut title in 2014. With the 2K Games rebrand, I thought PGA Tour 2K21 may aim to be more like EAs defunct golf series. Instead, whats here is a refinement of The Golf Club 2019, with welcome new functions and mechanical tweaks that make for a smoother experience on the course.
For those unfamiliar with the franchise, PGA Tour 2K21 is technically the 4th entry in The Golf Club series that was initially self-published by HB Studios. Its the 2nd title to be released by 2K Games following The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA Tour, which 2K helped polish ahead of its release in 2018. The shift to the 2K Sports calling convention will likely amass more eyeballs, but for devoted fans of The Golf Club like myself, you dont need to fret about HB Studios tinkering the formula excessive.
PGA Tour 2K21s significant gameplay change comes with the motion you duplicate over and over: your swing. Every golf player at all levels of play– including Tour pros– has various backswing timing, making this modification rather welcome. Solid swings have a cleaner and fluid look in PGA Tour 2K21, with speed feeling more in-step with real life.
Unlike the very forgiving Tiger Woods games with the exact same control plan, PGA Tour 2K21s swing mechanics depend on dialed-in accuracy, a minimum of when you play on Pro settings and up– a requirement for online matches. Get lackadaisical in your downswing and youll press the ball. Turn over too quickly and youll pull it. Nailing the timing ideal is quite rewarding and is key to posting low scores.
PGA Tour 2K21 has 6 swing problem levels– double the number from The Golf Club 2019– that can be additional tailored to fit your skill level. Golf is an extremely tough video game, and PGA Tour 2K21 showcases this while also being more welcoming to newbies.
PGA Tour 2K21 definitely improves on the total quality of the golf gameplay, however its not without its misses. The rough will be there to punish you if you hit a wayward tee shot. The thick yard is as unforgiving as previous games in the series, a fact that makes me feel conflicted. Trip places tend to have nasty rough that penalizes golf players for missing the fairway, however PGA Tour 2K21s rough can quickly become unrelenting. On short technique shots where you have a wedge in your hand, the ball tends to come out cleanly with excellent timing if you club up. Beyond wedge area and definitely when you start approaching 200 lawns, the rough starts to get a bit wonky. Shots tend to come out low and can fall upwards of 50 yards brief of where they would land out of the fairway. This fact, for anybody who plays golf, is a head-scratcher at finest, especially when you consider that coming out of the rough in some cases makes your ball go even more if you capture a “flyer.” Even hybrids, which are developed to work well in the rough, perform improperly in “heavy rough” and often even “light rough” lies. Incentivizing striking the fairway is good, but the penalty for missing the rough doesnt exactly feel in-tune with real golf.
Other than the rough woes, PGA Tour 2K21 is the most excellent golf sim to date from tee to green. From playing with a clean user interface to seeing whatever on screen from swing feedback to lie angle, PGA Tour 2K21 has all of the required bells and whistles, which must be handy for those finding out the ropes. And above all else, PGA Tour 2K21 has a satisfying loop that handled to provide me a shock of excitement almost every time I struck a best shot.
When you get on the green, putting remains the most tricky aspect of the series. And PGA Tour 2K21 makes you work for birdies outside of tap-in range. Lip-outs are a part of golf, but I cant count the number of times I struck a putt that curled and caught the edge out, just to stop inches from the hole.
The strong on the course experience is bolstered by the incentive-filled overarching systems and deep video game modes available in PGA Tour 2K21. The 2K rebranding brings MyPlayer to PGA Tour 2K21. From the outset, you develop your own golf player using a robust set of production tools and then head off on the race to the FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour. You have the alternative to jump straight to the Tour or get involved in Q-School and a shortened Korn Ferry Tour season to earn your Tour card. The Golf Club 2019 had the FedEx Cup currently, so the standard development is the exact same. That stated, expanded use of the official license and better modification functions make the profession mode more compelling this time around.
PGA Tour 2K21 has 15 genuine championship courses and events. The Golf Club 2019s six TPC courses– Sawgrass, Scottsdale, Boston, Deere Run, Southwind, and Summerlin– return and are signed up with by 4 more TPC courses as well as popular tracks like Riviera, Quail Hollow, Copperhead, Atlantic Beach, and East Lake, the website of the Tour Championship.
Every course you step onto across the prolonged season– which you can play as one, 2, 3, or complete four-round occasions– is a pleasure, specifically the courses that the pros tee it up at each year. HB Studios has replicated these well-known layouts to a genuine degree of precision. And this time around, youll see genuine pros on the leaderboards, including Official World Golf Rankings number one player Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Tony Finau, Jim Furyk, and seven others.
Throughout the season, youll establish rivalries with the pros, offering you the chance to best their efficiency over a short stretch and unlock new items. CPU performance varies based upon your settings, so you can change their ability levels if you feel like things are getting too easy or too hard. Sponsorships include different on-course objectives, which can then be renewed or switched after the contract ends. “Rank up” with a sponsor like TaylorMade, and youll open brand-new SIM Max equipment. This is a stark modification from previous entries which just had generic clubs attached to ability level– now you can customize your 14-club set how you see fit with popular brand names like TaylorMade, Callaway, and Bridgestone.
Critically, the brand-new club sets mean that those playing with easier settings arent losing on distance, as more flexible clubs– even the starting set– have close to Pro-level distances connected to them. The change is possibly most extensive in the wedge video game, as you can now choose between more lofts to fill in the spaces between clubs to your taste. Each club has various qualities for range, forgiveness, shot shaping, swing airplane, and range control, permitting you to further tweak whats in your bag. Golfers tend to be tinkerers– at least I am– so having more control over your equipment includes to the total technique and preparation you can do ahead of rounds at numerous styles naturally.
PGA Tour 2K21 has 2Ks Virtual Currency, its lightly executed in the career mode, even when it comes to brand-name clubs. You make VC by playing rounds of golf and leveling up in any mode, which can then be used to purchase brand-new devices and outfits from brands like Adidas, Under Armour, and Ralph Lauren. I have a complete set of TaylorMade SIM Max clubs that I made completely through my sponsorship.
In General, PGA Tour 2K21s method to profession mode is a welcome modification of speed for sports games, however theres one glaring feature that may prove to be puzzling for those who take a look at the cover art. Justin Thomas is the cover professional athlete, but you can not play as him or any of the other pros in any game mode.You are locked to your created gamer. In reality, you will likely only see photos of the Tour pros and their names on the leaderboards. I state likely since by default each tournament broadcast– your round of golf– is frequently disrupted by highlights from the pros on other holes. This is your only possibility to see them play in the game. The problem is that these interruptions are quite bothersome and strangely regular. Luckily, you can shut off the broadcast cutaways and simply play your own video game. I think of the non-playable pros have something to do with the licensing agreements, but its a little frustrating to not have the ability to play a casual round as one of the finest golf enthusiasts in the world.
Speaking of discussion, while it wont come as a surprise to anybody who routinely plays sports video games, the commentating in PGA Tour 2K21 is pretty bad. I wound up turning the commentary off halfway through my very first season and listened to music while playing rather.
Outside of the official courses, PGA Tour 2K21 has a course designer and database that will quickly be filled with user-created tracks. PGA Tour 2K21 auto-generates a course for you based on your selections, which you can then modify to your liking, including removing and including totally brand-new holes. Courses made in The Golf Club 2019 can be imported into PGA Tour 2K21.
At the moment, a minimum of on PS4, the course designer certainly chugs, taking more than a couple of seconds sometimes to implement each modification. I returned to compare the designer with The Golf Club 2019 and discovered that efficiency has to do with the exact same. While the designer definitely isnt as smooth as the rest of PGA Tour 2K21 experience, its still an outstanding design suite thats bound to bring lots of cool courses to life. And even if you do not seem like investing the time to design your own course, auto-generating new courses is a neat way to use various designs with journalism of a button. Each time you produce a course, the layout changes, even if all of the settings you have chosen are the same.
Ahead of launch, I wasnt able to check out the online features, however Online Societies was one of the cooler sports game modes in current memory in The Golf Club 2019, and PGA Tour 2K21 has an official society to sign up with right out of the gate to compete versus the entire neighborhood. Solo Societies, which had let you play custom-made seasons versus the CPU, is unfortunately missing out on in PGA Tour 2K21, leaving gamers who choose to play solo left with the PGA Tour season as their primary video game mode.
PGA Tour 2K21 improves on the mostly outstanding foundation of The Golf Club series, using the most sensible and pure golf experience in a video game to date. There are still some small inconveniences that can briefly take you out of the experience, but it offers a better approximation of the real PGA Tour schedule and a relaxing, structured approach to MyPlayer. For the many part, PGA Tour 2K21 admirably records the peculiar magic of the video game of golf.
Tour locations tend to have nasty rough that punishes golf players for missing out on the fairway, however PGA Tour 2K21s rough can quickly end up being unrelenting. You have the option to leap straight to the Tour or get involved in Q-School and a reduced Korn Ferry Tour season to make your Tour card. Courses made in The Golf Club 2019 can be imported into PGA Tour 2K21.
Solo Societies, which had actually let you play custom-made seasons against the CPU, is regretfully missing in PGA Tour 2K21, leaving gamers who prefer to play solo left with the PGA Tour season as their primary game mode.
PGA Tour 2K21 enhances on the mainly excellent foundation of The Golf Club series, using the most pure and practical golf experience in a game to date.
