Tiger 12 News Post

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters Demo Available Now, Post Impressions Here

05:45 AM - March 8, 2011 by Steve_OS

The Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters demo is available now for the Xbox 360.

UPDATE: The PS3 demo will not arrive until tomorrow at 6:00 PM EST.

UPDATE #2: Contrary to what the facebook page states, the demo is now available on the PS3. Enjoy.

Please post your impressions here.

Quote:


	"The long awaited Augusta National Golf Club is now available in the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR� 12: The Masters demo on Xbox� 360 and PlayStation� 3! Approach the tee box of the famous closing hole during the tournament�s final round in your quest to become the Masters champion and don the Green Jacket. In the �Play Now� setting, live that **** moment and have the first opportunity to play Augusta National�s par-4 18th. See the distinct Masters experience and hear the iconic voice of long-time Masters announcer, Jim Nantz, throughout the demo. Nantz sets the stage as Tiger Woods charges up the leaderboard in chase of his fifth Green Jacket. Take control of Tiger Woods on the final hole and attempt to be crowned Masters champion, while the all-new commentary team of Nantz, and the always entertaining David Feherty, call the action. In �Road to the Masters� mode, play holes 1-5 at TPC San Antonio Oaks Course - an all-new course to the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR franchise. Complete the five holes in the demo and jumpstart your career in the full retail version* by bypassing the EA SPORTS� Amateur Tour and proceeding straight to the Nationwide Tour. The PlayStation 3 version of the demo will support the PlayStation Move controller to fully replicate an authentic golf swing. Looking for an even more immersive golf interaction? The demo can also be played in True View mode � a first-person vantage point that is new to the PlayStation 3 with the Move controller. Additional information about the Masters Tournament, the all-new career mode, Caddie/Course Mastery, new golfers and courses, and a host of other new features are detailed in the demo. Share the demo with friends to earn additional experience points (XP)."

Source - Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters Blog

Game: Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The MastersReader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 15 - View All

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters Videos

Member Comments

# 121 Aggies7 @ 03/16/11 01:22 AM

I like the demo seemed a little short though. Still don't know why they don't add the course from MD that Tiger held for a few years.

# 122 ShivasIrons @ 03/16/11 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti


	No one hates this caddie more or was more pissed off with it than me as I'm still trying to decide whether it can be tolerable for me in the full game but I want the damn Masters so bad (I guess this is what EA is banking on) that I may relent and hope they give us a patch to totally disable it. ...

I wouldn't bank much hope on any patch. These are the same developers that last year released a course (Cog Hill) that they charged customers for as DLC, but forgot to include a pin/hole on the 11th hole on the "hard" pin settings. Did they fix that and re-release it? Nope. Every time you played it you had to hit your ball around on the hole to take a maximum shot of eleven, so that you could then just be able to advance to the 12th hole. You couldn't get a refund for your purchase either.

That game review that someone posted from Simu Gaming was strange. The guy - frodawg- apparently reviewed the demo from a sim perspective, but somehow reviewed it on the "tour pro" difficulty setting, as set forth in his last paragraph. That's no longer the most "sim-like" game mode and hasn't been since TW10. Some of his statements are just not accurate when in context of the hardest game difficulty modes -- called True Aim in TW11 and now Tournament in TW12.

# 123 All-Vol @ 03/16/11 10:36 AM

I played the hell out of the demo last night while messing around with all the different configurations. First of all, Seymour, you are right about the controls...they just take some getting used to. I'm not trilled with them but they will do.

For this game to be a winner they are going to have to patch some things in. They have to absolutely lose the caddie boxes and recommended shot lines if you've hit disable caddie. Even if you're playing every shot custom you just can't help but look at them, which makes you feel like you're cheating. I think this is probably do-able...and also realize that the physical caddie isn't going anywhere. They also need to patch in club distances for all modes.

On Tour Pro (which i like because of the camera angles and general landing area) they HAVE GOT to get rid of the little putting circle.

On Tournament they have to patch in yardages and elevations.

Considering they could leave the actual caddie in the game and just do away with his info I think the list above is realistic to hope for, don't you?

# 124 All-Vol @ 03/16/11 10:37 AM

# 125 mwjr @ 03/16/11 04:18 PM

Do you earn XP points in the demo, like you did with last year's?

# 126 ShivasIrons @ 03/16/11 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwjr


	Do you earn XP points in the demo, like you did with last year's?

Yes. It maxes out at 40,000. The easiest way to get there is to play the Road To The Masters over and over as you get a big bonus point award for each tourny you win or make a good showing. The harder the difficulty settings (including AI) you play the more xp you get each round, too. On tournament difficulty, I was getting about 2,000 xp per 5 hole tourney. Had a high of about 2,700 and lows around 1,800. So, it turns out to be about the equivalent of 6-7 18-hole rounds. You can also play the "play now", but you don't get the 1,500 xp bonus for winning the tourney, so it will take a fair amount longer.

# 127 Flightwhite24 @ 03/19/11 09:19 PM

After messing with the demo this week I am looking forward to getting this years installment. Not that big a fan of some of the changes but I can overlook it. Heck it's Golf

Let the early searching begin!!!!

# 128 rolltide1017 @ 03/22/11 10:50 AM

I'm not holding my breath for that though. The caddie feature is their little baby this year and they are determined to force it down every gamers throat. If they really had an once of common sense, they would have foreseen the sim fans not liking the caddie feature and built in the ability to completely disable it from the start.

# 129 Lieutenant Dan @ 03/22/11 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayhawker


	Well, I just really loved the way True Aim worked last year. It never rally dawned on me that they would jettison it. I deleted the demo after two holes, becasue the game just felt too dumbed down. I was parring holes without thinking. But I assumed the full version would have what I was looking for. I might try the demo again, but I will probably just rent the game when it comes out and decide from there. If the caddy thing was so good, why not just have it as an option. If it really is all that, gamers will use it. But why force it on us by deleting the best play mode I've ever used in a golf video game?

I'm just waiting for the full game at this point and I'll have a good go at it. My Gamestop manager is very cool with me about game exchanges if I don't like a game (I've only had to do it one time in two years), but if I didn't have this as an option, I would rent TW12 first.

Like you and many others, I have mad love for TrueAim and it's realistic take on golf. Hell, it's actually helped my REAL game! But if TrueAim has been 'hurt' by TW12, that will be critical for me. We'll see next week.

# 130 Jordanfan23 @ 03/23/11 03:47 PM

Someone please explain how "True Aim" worked on TW11. I played the hell out of TW10, but didn't pick up 11. Just interested how it worked because so many people seemed to have loved it!

# 131 ShivasIrons @ 03/24/11 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jordanfan23


	Someone please explain how "True Aim" worked on TW11. I played the hell out of TW10, but didn't pick up 11. Just interested how it worked because so many people seemed to have loved it!

In TW 11, True Aim was played from a more realistic perspective. You had to aim your shot from where your ball was at, .. from the tee or the fairway. You could zoom out and get some gps yardage figures, but all aiming had to be done like in real golf. One would pick out a spot or marker in the distance to aim for, just like in real golf. You also had to figure out your shots for yourself. The big drawback was that EA did not make True Aim available in online p2p. It was only available in offline or in Live Tournaments. A LOT of people were looking forward to this new version, as they thought this mode would be available for online play.

However, EA using it's wisdom changed the hardest difficulty level in TW 12. Instead of aiming truly, one can now zoom-out and aim while zoomed out. When aiming you can really zoom-in very close on your landing area. You can adjust not only your aim, but your landing area moves as you make adjustments. Your landing area moves when you change clubs. It moves when you decide to put draw or fade on a shot. It moves when you put loft on the shot. It moves when you use the new "choke" feature. All of this occurs while you are zoomed out. You could do none of this in TW 11. All of the adjustments had to be made from the tee, so you didn't know with the same precision that the aim and adjustments were spot on. Many thought it was a more realistic way to play.

And, of course, they have also added a caddy in TW 12 that cannot be turned off. You can make up your own "custom shot", but the caddy comes up with recommended shots that are on your screen and which are usually very good ones. The caddy chooses your club, aligns your shot, puts draw or fade on the ball, and tells you exactly what percentage to hit your club. All you have to do is hit that percentage. Not a whole lot of thinking is involved. In TW 11, it was left to the player to figure out all that stuff.

# 132 ShivasIrons @ 03/24/11 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by misterkrabz


	Does the demo seem choppy to you guys? I dropped in TW11 after playing the demo and the first thing that struck me was how silky smooth the gameplay was in 11...I'm hoping it's just the demo because after comparing the two games (12 demo to TW11) I have to say I prefer TW11...

It's hard to tell, ... some have mentioned and have wondered if the added caddy feature has hurt load times and made it somewhat more choppy. I haven't timed it or anything, but it does seem like the caddy loading has impacted the game some. Hard to tell. I was just waiting to see how the full game plays.

# 133 DivotMaker @ 03/24/11 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti


	And there's nothing about true aim this year that is actually true aim. Only in that after you hit you still get that golfer perspective but that's about it so it really isn't true aim this year, just in name only.

Can't say I agree (except for having a Caddy in Tournament mode), but whatever....

# 134 callmetaternuts @ 03/24/11 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti


	Good description, I'm trying to not think about how good true aim was last year and how immersive it was and now you brought back all those memories and now I 'm pissed off again that they took it out this year just to institute a caddie (and that was the only reason). It boggles my mind they would take the best sim feature in years and turf it for an arcady gimmick in tourney mode. I was looking so forward to playing Augusta with it. Seriously the TW devs have got to to be the stupidest devs for a sports game. The Madden guys are a respectable 2nd but the TW guys are comfortably in 1st. I'll get the game because of Augusta and the apparently improved career mode but I know months after playing this game I'll be shaking my head every so often thinking what possessed them to hard code a caddie into the game and screw everything up. And there's nothing about true aim this year that is actually true aim. Only in that after you hit you still get that golfer perspective but that's about it so it really isn't true aim this year, just in name only.

Maybe we can hope for True Aim to be patched in?

# 135 Lieutenant Dan @ 03/24/11 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayhawker


	I agree completely. I loved that you could get a good view of the course, and decide where you wanted to hit the ball, but without an aiming circle or any target, but when you went back into golfer mode, you just had to find a tree or hill that represented the direction you wanted. Then you could decide all of your loft, slice or draw adjustments. You just had a good general feel for where the ball should go, and the payoff when you succeeded was huge. I also like that each club only gave you its carrying distance. You had to figure out what kind of shot would result in what kind of roll you would get. Again, this really hammered away at the kind of things you learn when trying to improve areal golf game. I'm sorry, but not giving me carrying distance, but just telling me what % I need to hit to pull off a shot is just utter BS. I liked trying to figure out what % I might need on my own, and then trying to accomplish it. The idea that EA just took all of that out of the game is just flabbergasting to me. It's like they think it was the view that made the mode so good. But the dudebros railed against the mode, becasue they like -20 scores. And to be fair, TW 11 sold like crap. So it will go back to arcade easiness and sell a ton better. We, a small niche of gamers, had out game for one year. And luckily, we will still have it. It's just a kick in the pants, because I was looking forward to some TrueAim matches with the guys we played the short season with. I thought EA was perfecting the game. Instead, they just saved me $60, and probably a lot more, as I buy way too many extra course packs. I kind of wanted to skip this year becasue it seemed like a waste to have spent so much money on courses, only to buy a new game and have to build it up again. But The Masters and the promise of TrueAim online play made it an easy buy. But just like that, EA made it an easy pass. What I don't know is if EA is going to support Play the Pros and the weekly tournaments online for TW 11 anymore. I'm still going to rent the game, and give it a try. I hope I am so wrong about TrueAim being ruined.

All spot on...and I hope you're wrong about TrueAim being ruined too. That mode MADE TW11 a big step forward in videogame golf.

TrueAim/Tour Pro difficulty is a blast...and you DO learn from it for when you go out on the course for real.

I have zero issue with the caddie thing as long as EA fixes it (patch) so it can be truly disabled in every respect, and that we can play the game as we did last year if we choose to. I can understand from a business point of view of selling copies to make it more appealing to the masses, we all just don't want it at the expense of losing what made last year's game great.

But, we are definitely getting to 'dead horse' territory with this I guess...let's see how the final turns out and go from there.

# 136 ShivasIrons @ 03/24/11 11:28 AM

Agreed, ... But I'll still get the game because of Augusta, Atlanta AC, and Royal Melbourne (TPC San Antonio, too). I'm just not sure of a couple things: (1) how long I'll play it on a regular basis -- I played TW11 almost daily the whole ten months it was out; and (2) if I'll buy much of the DLC. Last year I bought every single DLC the day it was released and paid top dollar for them. Most of the DLC this year is the same as last year, so I may just put TW11 in if I want to play those courses. Plus, the DLC last year had so many defects in them that EA refused to fix that it makes one less willing to buy more. Like I mentioned before, they released Cog Hill last year that didn't have a pin or hole on the 11th green on hard pins. I'm still amazed that they refused to fix that one, among many.

I'm sure I'll get a better idea of it all after spending some time playing the full game. I'm hoping that the game will still be at least playable for me.

# 137 Rules @ 03/24/11 05:51 PM

I passed on TW11 so should I get that one instead of TW12?

# 138 econoodle @ 03/24/11 05:57 PM

yikes
i preordered this the other day based on the new career mode, but you guys saved me 69.99.

I'll pass thanks to the caddy nonsense.
oy vey what a strange decision to cut out true aim.

I'll have to pass this info along to a couple of my friends who were thinking of getting it.

thanks guys for the impressions, it helped.

# 139 The Bimmer @ 03/24/11 06:50 PM

I know I probably wont make alot of friends by this comment about true aim, but...

Assuming we are all talking about tournament mode.... yes when you flick up on the left stick (ps3) it zooms out to the fairway and reveals everything you need know, same thing as TW11 and we can use the directional pad to aim where we want to hit it.

Now I agree when we flick down and zoom back to the tee there isnt the distance of the club we want to use just the %. Now if we disable the caddie from the beginning we are using the custom club, so all draws, fades and loft are set up here just as in TW11 granted in a different manner as we all have seen.

Now what puzzles me is why all the complants? How many times does a person have to use his 8 iron for example to know it carrys 152 yrds at 100%? This would be like going out on the golf course in real life and placing a little tag on every club with a note of how far you can hit it.

To be honest in TW11 it got to the point that after 300 rounds and hours of club tuning I never even noticed the club distances. I knew in an instant what club I was gonna use based on yardage. I just had to factor the wind and swung the club based on feel or %.

Yes, at first it will be more of a thinking game, but 2 months in I believe it will be routine.

# 140 Flightwhite24 @ 03/24/11 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bimmer


	I know I probably wont make alot of friends by this comment about true aim, but... Assuming we are all talking about tournament mode.... yes when you flick up on the left stick (ps3) it zooms out to the fairway and reveals everything you need know, same thing as TW11 and we can use the directional pad to aim where we want to hit it. Now I agree when we flick down and zoom back to the tee there isnt the distance of the club we want to use just the %. Now if we disable the caddie from the beginning we are using the custom club, so all draws, fades and loft are set up here just as in TW11 granted in a different manner as we all have seen. Now what puzzles me is why all the complants? How many times does a person have to use his 8 iron for example to know it carrys 152 yrds at 100%? This would be like going out on the golf course in real life and placing a little tag on every club with a note of how far you can hit it. To be honest in TW11 it got to the point that after 300 rounds and hours of club tuning I never even noticed the club distances. I knew in an instant what club I was gonna use based on yardage. I just had to factor the wind and swung the club based on feel or %. Yes, at first it will be more of a thinking game, but 2 months in I believe it will be routine.

Pretty much how I feel at this point Bimmer. Hopefully all will be well come release.

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