Perfect Golf Available Now on Steam Early Access For $19.99

[Steve_OS]

Perfect Golf is available now on Steam Early Access for $19.99. Here are a few screenshots and if the embedded video above doesn't work for you, click here to watch it.

What makes Perfect Golf different?

• The Creative Director of the game is a PGA golf professional,
• Geo-referenced courses giving real world sun angles, sun rise and set times,which will also open up the ability to merge real world golf with computer golf. No longer play as your favorite pro, play against them!
• Real world weather integration with live data from worldwide weather stations,
• Real time 'emergent' physics engine - all forces such as wind and spin act on the ball in real time, we don't know where the ball is going to end up any more than you do when it's hit, it's not scripted behavior just ...physics!
• First person mode allows you to drop into a free camera or walking mode and survey the beautiful environments at your leisure

Perfect Golf has been designed from the outset to be a community driven game with regular content and feature releases based on player feedback.

Read the full press release below and if you try it out, let us know what you think.

Perfect Parallel has announced the release of “Perfect
Golf", a Golf Simulation Game for PC MAC and Linux on Steam

Perfect Parallel today announced that it has released Perfect
Golf into Early Access on Steam’s Digitial Distribution Platform.

Perfect Golf is a new kind of golf simulation that is based on a goal to integrate the real world of golf and the gaming side of golf in a way that has never been done before. Featuring fully geo referenced golf courses that exist within a real space in the world, Perfect Golf is able to integrate real world data into its virtual worlds.

Perfect Golf features a full real time multiplayer game mode with an integrated lobby inside the game, support for NAT Punchthrough technology, integrated chat and player status in the chat window. With support for up to 8 players and 4 teams simultaneously it also features a single play, local multiplayer and practice modes with Skins, Match and Stroke gameplay types.

Perfect Golf also features an emergent physics engine which calculates the effects on the ball in real time. A key component of this is our “live”wind engine with built in elevation coefficient and gust factor which ensures that the wind is varying throughout the 3D environment.

There are 7 different replay cameras and 3 main cameras including a dynamic camera with reverse and landing snap cameras and two different player assists to make the game easier for beginners.

Most importantly Perfect Golf immerses the user in the most photorealistic golf sim available for PC MAC and Linux since golf games migrated from 2D imagery to 3D environments. A real time weather system tied into the courses geo referenced location and user selected city based weather provides a realistic time of day and lighting environment.

The Early Access version ships with 5 courses and more will be released during Early Access. Each course is built using our own Course Forge tools which have been adopted by Nicklaus Design as their digital design tool for in house course development (http://www.perfectparallel.com/nicklaus). We anticipate releasing Course Forge for non commercial use just prior to or along with the full retail release of Perfect Golf.

During Early Access we will be working with the community of adopters to prioritize the new features to be added into the game. Please come and join us and help make Perfect Golf become the best golf game for PC, MAC and Linux.

[hikwelity]

Is this the new Perfect Golf thread? I see the other one is closed.

I've watched about 5 different people on broadcast now. I'd say the time spent in the menus to playing is close to 2:1 right now, so it's hard to get a read on the gameplay. I've only seen one person finish a round without quitting so far. Hopefully this will change as people figure out the settings.

I will say that my initial impressions from watching are skepticism. While the customization, especially with lighting, weather, and things like that, seems like it could be impressive, the overall experience of playing does not appear to be as fun as TGC, and I can't say that I see a huge improvement in realism, either.

What was once excitement to get home tonight and try it out now feels more like, meh, I could wait.

[BoomerSooner22]

Looks like The Golf Club to me, if you have that, why get this?

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by BoomerSooner22

Looks like The Golf Club to me, if you have that, why get this?

I have them both and in my experience, they look and play a lot different. The Golf Club uses DirectX 11, which allows HBS to use fur shaders in their game. Fur shaders are allowing them to create rough that has a 3D-ish depth and texture, among other things. Perfect Golf uses DirectX 9, which allows older machines to be able to run the game, but also ties the developers hands a bit. Once you get to the secondary rough in PG, they use generic Unity textures, and they look very unnatural and blocky.

PG's custom textures which comprise the tees, fairways, greens, and first cut of rough look fine from low angles, but even they take on a blocky (although a lot less blocky look than Unity's textures) when viewed from a high angle. If you have the reverse angle enabled, the camera will sometimes cut to an extremely zoomed closeup of the hole from like an 80 degree overhead angle and that green texture that looked pretty natural from the swing camera, suddenly looks like something out of the 90's!?

Where I think PG has an advantage over TGC is there's a larger variety of course objects available to the designer and the courses look more distinctive. You can't look at a PG course and identify it with any "theme" constraints. It also has more of an "impressionistic" art style, which has its pluses and minuses. In ways, it looks less 3D than The Golf Club, but lends itself to yielding better screen shots.

What's killing PG for me though is the lack of a real time swing interface. Neither option (-click or motion/mouse) is real time. You execute the swing through completion, then watch a "serviceable" golfer animation carry out what you've told it to do during the control sequence immediately thereafter. It makes the experience feel disjointed and out of phase to me. Perfect Parallel is working on a real time motion swing interface, and they say eventually, one that uses thumbstick controllers. Until they do, PG will be little more than a curiosity to me. I still think they've tied themselves down with DirectX 9 in terms of moving forward, but we'll see...

[yesrushdt]

Another thing that PG has going for it besides the much better course architect is a strong possibility of licensed courses being in the game. The developers have a deal with the PGA Tour to recreate 30 courses for tournament broadcast flybys. They will be asking the owners of each one of these courses for a license to include their courses into the game. They also have a partnership with Nicklaus Design, so I would think some of his courses would end up in the game. Between the users creating courses with the architect and the prospect of officially licensed courses, expect tons of superb, unique designs for years and years to come.

I'm enjoying this game more and more with every round I play. Once they add the real time motion swing and a camera selection system similar to TW08 (both of which are eventually going to happen) it will make the game all the better. I hope they're able to improve on the graphics in the future and add optional enhancements for users with DX10/11 capable graphics cards. That said, it's still a great, challenging golf simulation that will only get better in the months leading up to the official release.

[bluengold34_OS]

Here is an in-game screenshot from our newest released course, Illinois C.C.

[bluengold34_OS]

We just released a new update for Perfect Golf early access, on steam. Should help alleviate the network issues some were experiencing.

[frank70]

All i can say, that this game has a great foundation. The motion swing and the in-air ball physics are so lifelike! When I'm standing on a long par 3 with water in front of the green i really get anxious. Because i have to get the (motion) swing right. Tempo has to be right as well as hitting the ball in the centre of the club. And this is, at least on the harder difficulties, far from easy. Having said that: It's so satisfying to get it right - because it isn't easy. I own TGC as well, and i honestly have to say, that i doesn't get this feeling often in that game. The swing is too easy for me, pitching and chipping isn't a real challenge. TGC looks terrific, but i doesn't get the feeling of a real golf sim.

The graphics in PG aren't as flashy as TGCs but to me they look very realistic. It really get the immersion of beeing on a golf course. The ondulations of the fairways and greens are very well designed as the bunkers as well. The whole topography of a golf course is well designed - better as in any golf game so far.

I'm a pretty good golfer in real life (handicap 9) and when i'm playing Perfect Golf i have to make decisions, i have to make in real life as well. You have a 170 yards approach to a tugged pin in the left back corner of a green? Do you go directly to the flag, or maybe you should go with a lower draw and let the ball release to the pin? You can perform all those shots in PG. In this special case you have to perform a draw with motion swing, aim 10-15 yards to right, try to land the ball 5 yards right of the flag. The sidespin (Perfect Golf has real ballflight and spin rates data implemented in the game!) of the draw will push the ball slowly towards the flag. I have to say: This feels like real golf!

Is it PERFECT Golf right now? No. The graphics could use a little tinkering. More information about the lie of the ball and way more camera options should be implemented. But for me, those things are, although important, just cosmetics.

For everybody, who is searching for a golfSIM: Check this game out (for only 19 $ !!). Remember: This is early access. The core golf gameplay is in a very satisfying state already. I'm sure, that the release version will be a wonderful representation of golf!