Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions

[MrArlingtonBeach]

I hate the putting meter. Not sure what it is...I just prefer the previous years' better.

Tempo swinging is gonna take some getting used to. I am getting all 'Slow' tempo shot feedback results. I then get all 'Fast' feedback when putting.

I do like the way the Manual caddie is implemented this year. Doesn't intrude and makes you actually set up the shot.

Graphics are excellent, although Tiger Woods' character looks off to me.

I am still looking forward to the game. I have it preordered and won't cancel it. But the new swing mechanic is gonna be tough to learn. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just something long-time players of the franchise will have to become accustomed to.

[kevster2]

To aim the putt you use the D pad! I think the demo is very good, much better then I anticipated!

[Seymour Scagnetti]

To say this game has been dumbed down is the understatement of the year. What they have done is mind boggling. Every decision regarding club selection is made for you in the fairway, in the rough and on the greens. The aiming marker tells you what club to use when you are buried in the rough which was half the fun of the game trying to estimate what club to use in the rough and whether you guessed wrong and over\under shot the green because of your decision. Oh you're deep in the rough, no problem we'll take the tricky decision of what club to use and just swing away and get that tempo down because if you hit perfect that 5 iron will take it right to the flag just like if you hit it perfectly on the fairway it will go right to the same flag and then just set your putter marker at 10 feet and swing away because you know we won't let you misjudge the speed of the greens and let it roll too far away. Just worry about that tricky tempo and we'll do all the thinking. I've used more strategy playing Angry Birds and I'm being totally serious, that's how far this game has fallen in terms of allowing you to strategize about anything.

The marker determines the distance of your putter so you you don't not have to judge green speed and how hard to hit your putter because it won;t go much farther past than where your marker is placed. They've killed the overall feel of putting which was most of the fun and have prearranged max distances depending where you place the marker. That is simply a game killer right there.

No course management is required, just flick that joystick back and forth as fluidly as you can, take out some munchies and mindlessly do it again because you know everytime you have picked the right club. A dev stated they wanted to eliminate the math entirely to attract new gamers. Why? it's not calculas, it's called course management. I doubt Boo Weekley is a math whiz but has his caddie to do that. And we are given a manual caddie if we don't want to think it out so why dumb down the game for people who want to pay sim like and force us to play a mindless game of stick flicking without the option of playing with as little aids as possible.

The feel is unnatural and varies oddly between striking and putting and the swing animations no golfer would do in real life for some shots. They play by thier own physics so it's hard to have the joystick feel like an extension of the golf club when the game plays by it's own rules regarding tempo.

It's just an insult to the sim guys and I understand why anticipation on websites is tepid at best because the guys wanting a realistic golf game have given up and I'm one of them. They had a great sim game in TW 11, dumbed it down for TW12 and then gave it a total lobotamy for TW13 and think that making it as difficult and tricked out as possible to flick the joystick is what sim gamers will enjoy and that's where they want the difficulty to come from.

To say the devs are misguided is another huge understatement. Strategy along with shot execution is what makes it difficult and most importantly fun. Just flicking the joystick as best you can is fine for people who want that but to deny another way to play for people who don't want that it's a complete kick in the face.

[mike24forever]

^ you should probably not buy this game.

[leafs nation]

To me, charging extra for the green jacket presentation is on par with charging extra for the stanley cup presentation in NHL or like charging extra for laces when you buy shoes.

[JimmyPelican]

Im actually still playing TW 10. I decided to download the demo and I am dissapointed in the putting. It seems very clunky like Onlooker said. I dont understand the change.
I love the feel of the putting in TW10. I felt I had more control in the feel of my golfer.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Quote: Originally Posted by erickonasis

cant wait for this....been on a hot shots tear lately with Vita so i'm trying this when i get offf work

Not getting a Vita, but gotta admit HS on that little beastie would be sweet.

The demos for TW the past couple of years, especially TW12, were pretty bad for me. I seem to get MUCH more enjoyment out of the full versions and building up my CAG from crap to competitor lol. So, I'm passing on the demo this year, have the CE preordered from amazon on good faith that I like what EA has been delivering, especially with TW11 and 12.

Glad to hear mostly positive vibes so far on the demo from you guys.

Seymour, I reckon you'll be sticking with 11 unless you get 13 anyway and have an epiphany. Nothing wrong with that....EA seems to be making conscionably different games from 11 to 12 to 13.

11 IS a masterpiece in it's own right. Love the 'math' and course management in that one, it's the most like really playing and is a thinking-man's Tiger Woods game (especially top difficulty/True Aim).

12 took me a little while to warm up to and I thought I made a mistake buying it at first, then once I got it set up how I enjoy playing it and accepted it's 'differentness' from TW11, I started having a great time with it (carnival pins aside, but that didn't break it for me).

I'm open to what 13's bringing this year.

[huntt26]

I tried out the Kinect controls last night, as that is my primary interest of the game this year. I'm VERY glad they have the voice controls because menu navigation and picking clubs would be a nightmare without it. The voice controls worked great, I only had to repeat my command a couple times in about an hour of gameplay.

The controls themselves are fun, because you get to actually swing. I cannot speak for their accuracy, as I just tried on Pro difficulty. I will try more advanced moves tonight. It was pretty easy to pick up and be successful on Pro, but I was Tiger, so that's to be expected I guess.

I had some issues aiming my shot. I would say "aim shot" and it would show my cursor, and it wants to you stick out your hand, close it and drag the cursor. It worked GREAT for moving the cursor right and left, but I had a heck of a time moving it up and down. The kinect seemed to lose my hand and would not drag the cursor in a smooth movement. I will experiment some more with this, maybe I was doing something wrong.

Other than that, the only other problem I had was when I crouched down to view the lie of the green. The game wasn't sure what I was doing, and kept looping between the menu items and me standing and crouching. It looked pretty funny.

For Kinect, I am pretty happy, but hope I can get the 'ins and outs' of the controls down, and I'm hoping it's harder on higher difficulties, but not frustrating due to crappy control.