Rory McIlroy PGA Tour

EA Tiburon's PGA Tour games have been in need of a reboot for a while now, and not only because of former cover star Tiger Woods' diminishing stature. They had become overly complicated and sluggish and had long since fallen into a rut whereby annual releases were barely distinguishable. The two years put into developing the first game with Rory McIlroy have gone a long way toward remedying some of these problems. The menus are cleaner, everything loads much faster, and it's generally a lot easier to find your way around. Plus, the courses are probably the prettiest yet in any golf game. Authentic grass textures, dramatic sunlight, and little touches such as flies buzzing around the camera lens help transport players to the courses of their dreams. That they're rendered complete as a single map -- meaning you can play errant drives from other fairways without suffering a stroke and distance penalties and don't have to wait for a new hole to load each time you hole out -- is just gravy.

But the designers still have some work ahead of them. This entry is light on courses -- there are only 12, four of which are fantasy rather than licensed -- and some of the more famous tracks are absent, such as Augusta National. What's more, there are no LPGA players or events -- a regressive shame after Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 introduced both. And avatar customization has been severely reduced, with players limited to a handful of pregenerated faces, hairstyles, and body types and a boring selection of outfits that all are variations of standard sports golf attire. Rory McIlroy PGA Tour has the makings of a good golf game, but it needs to be fleshed out a bit more in future entries before it becomes a true golf superstar.