79.7 hours played
Written 1 month and 1 day ago
I bet you're wondering if this game is worth your (or someone else's) hard-earned money. You're thinking to yourself, "Man, I did a whole bunch of shit that I just didn't want to do this week. Should I treat myself right and get the newest golf video game on the market? Is this going to be a worthwhile expenditure of my time and money?" I do that same mental calculus, but with everything. I do it with golf games, I do it with relationships, I do it when I'm looking at the lunch menu: "This looks good, but it may result in a fatter ass. Is this temporary pleasure worth having a fat ass? If I don't want a fat ass and want this lunch, won't I have to work out? Why must I work out? Weights are heavy. Who thought up lifting heavy shit as a pastime anyway?"
But I digress; you are on the fence about this golf game. You've read the reviews and you see the game's ominous review status: mixed. Well, I'll tell you what - I had to see the state of the game for myself to confirm whether or not I wanted to reward a company's bad practices and poor behavior, or if I simply wanted to put this on my back burner for the next several years, forget about it entirely, and then buy it when word of PGA 2K30 drops.
Firstly, I think this game tries to waste as much of your time getting into it as possible, so that the refund window is passively reduced through your own aggravation of getting everything set up to play it. You are immediately confronted by a timer with a QR code and a 6-digit letter-number code, and you must use one of these 2 codes to either create a new 2K account, or link your existing 2K account to your Steam account. This screen states: "Oh, it only takes 2 minutes to make an account, bud. What's the big deal?" Well, I'll tell you what - it's more like 5 minutes. I am as intellectually dishonest as anyone else online, and so I lie about all of my information everywhere, all the time, and must document my lies so that, if I ever need to sign into this (useless) 3rd-party account again, I can do so. I also didn't have my phone handy because (and this may shock some people) I'm not in the business of accepting calls while I'm attempting to enjoy myself. I also had to type that 6-digit code's web link in a URL bar manually.
After going through the tedious process of verifying the existence of a 2K account, new or old, you now get to make your golfer. I'm a business man at-heart, and so I just hit Quick Start, chose the first preset, chose one of 5 different swing archetypes (which I'm going to tell you right now - none of these probably matter in the long-run), and finally reached the main menu... not! Instead, I get a tutorial lesson playing as Tiger Woods, in the very same style as 2K23. I'm not a better man, but I would wager this entire tutorial was ripped directly from that and implemented into this. I hit 2 beautiful drives in a row, both of which were within 8 ft. of the pin (have to do it right when reppin' Mr. Woods, you know), and then I proceeded to miss a little left-to-right 3-foot putt because I forgot what golf mechanic I chose to play with (k&m). Anyway, I got a retry (because you will not be moving on until you prove some level of competency), made the putt, and finally reached the fabled main menu... where I was immediately assaulted by messages of 'VC this' and 'buy my mixtape'. It's a curious thing, paying for something to actively annoy you. I don't know why anyone would want to do that.
Now, being a business man, there's only so much bullshit I can digest in such a short window of time. I x'd out of all of the predatory pop-ups. I've taken to calling these poop-ups because, as it happens, shit floats to the top from time to time. I quickly gave everything a once-over: there's a store where you buy all of your rad player merch from with the venereal disease-sounding abbreviation that is 'VC'. Neat, whatever, don't really care - at a glance, it seemed apparent that it would take the average player who does not want to blow their money on this disease token a substantial amount of time playing the game honestly to earn enough tokens to buy most of what was in the shop. Anyway, the clubs have levels, the player has levels, and I think 2K's HQ should be leveled for jamming in so much worthless stuff in what should've been a 30 second process to get to this point, but ended up being more like a 10-12 minute one.
Finally, I was ready to play. I went to join the tour at the lowest level, Q-School, because I felt I should earn my stripes. As I went to go play my first round at Sawgrass, I received a pop-up in the form of a text from a fellow who was likely my "agent". And I immediately ignored this outreach, just as I would from any solicitor of shit that I do not want to be bothered with. Finally - finally, finally - I could play the game, having navigated all of the obstacles and whatnot. I was a solid 12-13 minutes deep by this point.
The big question then: HOW DOES IT PLAY? Well, it's easy. I don't know what kind of answer anyone would be expecting. It's not a Sekiro-esque learning curve. It's a golf game, where the greatest enemy you'll end up facing is yourself - the career mode AI certainly isn't going to get the job done. I chose a non-Powerhouse option - Sculptor; my dear character, Mr. Pro Golfer, can carry 300+ yards most of the time, and my balls land with the grace of a ballet dancer (there's a visual) on the surface of the greens, within fair proximity to the hole. Putting remains a breeze. You have 2 options for gameplay: mouse & keyboard, or 3-click (mouse). I opted for mouse & keyboard because it appeared to be the more popular option, and everyone knows that popular opinion is never wrong. It also seemed like it would present more of a challenge, which I endorse - the difficulty of most golf games is trivialized by 3-click, and these games are not difficult in the first place. I finished my first round using what I expect is the more difficult mechanic on TPC Sawgrass at a sterling -8. I missed several shots into water hazards along the way because I have not yet gotten into the "swing of things" with the pull-push-click mechanic of the mouse. It could've been -14 under if I understood how my own wrist works.
How does the game stack up against more recent major golf titles, like EA Sport's PGA TOUR and this 2K's predecessor title, 2K23? Well, the courses are nice. Visually, everything is aesthetically pleasing. I can also confirm for you, following some of the other reviews complaining about slow menus, that this game's menu is nowhere near as buggy as EA Sport's PGA Tour was at release and remains to this day. Half of my playtime on that title was me trying to change my character's shirt. Mechanically, if you are familiar with the 2K series then I think you'll end up treating as business as usual, because it's pretty much the same. I read a few reviews lamenting about how it takes forever to level up your player, but, frankly speaking, you can probably score your mythical -20 under round at 65 OVR. This is not the kind of game that you need upgrades for in order to be the best, of that much I can assure you. As far as unlocking all the peripherals is concerned, that will probably take time. If you don't enjoy playing golf games, you won't enjoy how you're spending your time.
Verdict? Try it - get it while it's on sale, get through all of the bullshit as quickly as I did, don't spend too much time on anything, play a round or two to get a proper feel for the game, and return it within that 2-hour mark if you don't like it. You'll know if you hate it within the first hour. You'll know if you're going to spend several hundred hours playing it within that first hour too. I know in my heart that, because I'm something of a self-professed sucker, I'll play this game for well over 100 hours. I won't spend a dime on buying VC either.
Thanks for reading, have a great day, and drink responsibly.
