IGN 360 Review

[Doodzey]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/739/739022p1.html

8.5 Sounds pretty good.

[poster]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I want to be excited after reading the review, but some comments left me puzzled. He talks about how difficult it is, and how the game has changed. Then in his Closing Comments he says this:

"Finally, there is a bit of challenge built into the game and you'll have to earn every victory on tour and in the Tiger Challenge. But eventually you'll max out your stats and start plugging hole-in-ones. Hey, this is still a Tiger Woods game."
A strong gameplay score, but these odd comments:

"
9.0 Gameplay
Finally, course management. True Aiming is such a sweet, simple solution you wonder why EA didn't think of it before. And after hours on the range, you'll shoot a 63, just like the old days. "

WTF? Is it harder or not? Hopefully the sliders help. I am still bothered by the lack of courses and how that ties into the Fed Ex Cup format. 30 events on 12 courses? That sucks.

[jk5911]

Re: IGN 360 Review

Yeah, IGN is lame in their sports reviews. I am going to wait and see comments from other OS'ers to see if it truly is more difficult.

[Rodster]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I am still bothered by the lack of courses and how that ties into the Fed Ex Cup format. 30 events on 12 courses? That sucks.

Isn't EA supposedly selling additional courses online for TW07 on Marketplace?

[DivotMaker]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I want to be excited after reading the review, but some comments left me puzzled. He talks about how difficult it is, and how the game has changed. Then in his Closing Comments he says this:

"Finally, there is a bit of challenge built into the game and you'll have to earn every victory on tour and in the Tiger Challenge. But eventually you'll max out your stats and start plugging hole-in-ones. Hey, this is still a Tiger Woods game."
A strong gameplay score, but these odd comments:

"
9.0 Gameplay
Finally, course management. True Aiming is such a sweet, simple solution you wonder why EA didn't think of it before. And after hours on the range, you'll shoot a 63, just like the old days. "

WTF? Is it harder or not? Hopefully the sliders help. I am still bothered by the lack of courses and how that ties into the Fed Ex Cup format. 30 events on 12 courses? That sucks.

If you max out your attributes, the game is likely to play easier every time you upgrade. It does not sound like this reviewer spent much time at all on the PGA TOUR difficulty setting, so I am withholding judgement on difficulty and challenge until I get the game in MY hands....

As far as the 12 courses, the vast majority of you are not aware of how much it costs to build a licensed PGA TOUR course, nor the man-hours involved in making it as accurate as possible. Each course is photographed with an average number of photos at 8-10,000 photos (including panoramas and all the different textures). Then the course is videotaped to capture the ambience of the course and how it "flows". All the while, EA hires a GPS mapping service to map the terrain to be accurate to 6" or less. Then all that information is fed into the course creation tool for the 360 version. For 360 courses, it takes 3-4 TIMES the man-hours to build a course for the 360 versus what it takes for the XBox and PS2. Far more detail and artwork that goes into these courses. This of course takes a great deal of time to create and QA from start to finish, so when you consider that, there is a reason that there are fewer courses in the 360 version at launch. I should know, I was contracted by EA to photograph and videotape 6 of their licensed courses from TW2003 to TW2006.

[DivotMaker]

Re: IGN 360 Review

Isn't EA supposedly selling additional courses online for TW07 on Marketplace?

I think that is a fairly blurry topic right now, but if TW07 for 360 takes off and sells well, I have a feeling EA won't hesitate to support it with additional course content. I guess we'll see as they continue to update us as this moves along....

[poster]

Re: IGN 360 Review

If you max out your attributes, the game is likely to play easier every time you upgrade. It does not sound like this reviewer spent much time at all on the PGA TOUR difficulty setting, so I am withholding judgement on difficulty and challenge until I get the game in MY hands....

As far as the 12 courses, the vast majority of you are not aware of how much it costs to build a licensed PGA TOUR course, nor the man-hours involved in making it as accurate as possible. Each course is photographed with an average number of photos at 8-10,000 photos (including panoramas and all the different textures). Then the course is videotaped to capture the ambience of the course and how it "flows". All the while, EA hires a GPS mapping service to map the terrain to be accurate to 6" or less. Then all that information is fed into the course creation tool for the 360 version. For 360 courses, it takes 3-4 TIMES the man-hours to build a course for the 360 versus what it takes for the XBox and PS2. Far more detail and artwork that goes into these courses. This of course takes a great deal of time to create and QA from start to finish, so when you consider that, there is a reason that there are fewer courses in the 360 version at launch. I should know, I was contracted by EA to photograph and videotape 6 of their licensed courses from TW2003 to TW2006.

I work in IT, I understand that its hard. It still doesn't change the fact that playing a PGA Tour season is cheapened by a lack of courses. Hopefully they have additional content.

[DivotMaker]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I work in IT, I understand that its hard. It still doesn't change the fact that playing a PGA Tour season is cheapened by a lack of courses. Hopefully they have additional content.

No Golf game in in the history of video games has ever had all the courses of that year's PGA TOUR schedule, in fact none have ever had HALF the courses. It is something that cyber Golfers have lived with since video Golf was invented. Not sure why it is any different today.....

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: IGN 360 Review

No Golf game in in the history of video games has ever had all the courses of that year's PGA TOUR schedule, in fact none have ever had HALF the courses. It is something that cyber Golfers have lived with since video Golf was invented. Not sure why it is any different today.....

None have had them out of the box but you can sure download just about any one for a lot of the older PC games that came with course editors. Maybe they're not perfect but some of the people who made those courses did a damn good job. Quite frankly, I think EA has lost it's direction with the Tiger series. They're burning tons of development time going for hyper-realism in terms of course builds but they're keeping the gameplay to an arcade style. How many people actually notice that every tree is meticulously placed on the course? The crazy thing is that the graphics in the demo aren't even though good - they're good but are they as good as one would expect after having spent 3-4X as much time as on the current-gen versions?

[DivotMaker]

Re: IGN 360 Review

None have had them out of the box but you can sure download just about any one for a lot of the older PC games that came with course editors.

I guess I was under the context of what courses came with the game and the fact that this is a console-related thread.

Maybe they're not perfect but some of the people who made those courses did a damn good job. Quite frankly, I think EA has lost it's direction with the Tiger series.

Agreed. I have a feeling that the 360 version might reverse the direction in the right way. We'll soon see.

They're burning tons of development time going for hyper-realism in terms of course builds but they're keeping the gameplay to an arcade style.

Sounds like they spent a great deal of time on gameplay for this upcoming version. No matter how much you dislike it, casual users want an arcade style of gameplay and the average/casual user buys many more copies than the hardcore users do.

How many people actually notice that every tree is meticulously placed on the course?

You and I both know that if someone pointed out a tree was missing on a course, then it WOULD be a big deal. Plus, if the course that licensed the game to EA notices, you don't think they would say something? I can't believe anyone is criticizing EA for trying to get the details RIGHT because many times it is the details that they DON'T get right that haunts many of their games.

The crazy thing is that the graphics in the demo aren't even though good - they're good but are they as good as one would expect after having spent 3-4X as much time as on the current-gen versions?

Could not disagree more. There is a WORLD of difference between the 360 and CG consoles. Not going to argue any further with you on this one.

[poster]

Re: IGN 360 Review

No Golf game in in the history of video games has ever had all the courses of that year's PGA TOUR schedule, in fact none have ever had HALF the courses. It is something that cyber Golfers have lived with since video Golf was invented. Not sure why it is any different today.....

I never said it was any different today. The reason does not matter. At the end of the day it still sucks no matter how you spin it, for this game or any other golf game.

[dbrandon]

Re: IGN 360 Review

EA should spend a lot more time on game-play and less on how TW looks. I would think TW himself would want the game to be much more of a challenge then it has been.

[dbrandon]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I work in IT, I understand that its hard. It still doesn't change the fact that playing a PGA Tour season is cheapened by a lack of courses. Hopefully they have additional content.

and the xbox has 21 courses for 39.99.

[DivotMaker]

Re: IGN 360 Review

and the xbox has 21 courses for 39.99.

An number of which have appeared in past CG versions....I guess they think not doing anything to gameplay or online stability is made up by addding a few more courses....

[sroz39]

Re: IGN 360 Review

I don't see why everyone is getting on EA's case with this game. It truly baffles me to be honest with you.

1) The courses in the game look better than any other golf game to date. Yet some still complain and some have the audacity to say that they shouldn't bother with the graphics and nail the gameplay. If they did that, the sceams to make it look next-gen would be deafening.

2) The gameplay has been arcadey in the past. But it looks like the team is focusing on giving us two seperate styles of play for once. Look at the screenshot of the shot being aimed at the green...the aiming circle covers the whole green and then some. Of course if you max out your player, it becomes easier. Which brings me to....

3) Inconsistency in you guys. You guys will happily stop developing your player in Links because you know even in the venerable Links, it becomes way too easy with a player that's maxed out. In fact, it's very Tiger-esque, IMO. But you'll do it in TW and then complain openly about how easy it is. Huh?? Why is it ok in one and not the other?

Understand, I am in NO way, shape or form an EA defender. Anyone that's been paying attention to my posts on these forums knows that. But it looks like the dev team behind this game are truly working to make this game harder, and in that sense, it shouldn't be compared to TW's in the past, but as a stand alone product.

Sure, I hate the ball-cam, chipping system and to a degree, the putting system. But this game looks like a huge step up visually from the CG TW's and the gameplay looks much improved. Personally, I think I'll be happy with this EA product. Which, other than NHL 07, has not been the case the past few years.