Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
This just proves looks aren't everything.
Published: November 30, 2006
Tiger Woods has been one of the rare universally kick-ass outings for EA's Redwood Shores development house for a few years now, which is all the more impressive given that it's been moving more toward realism in little notches in the last couple years. PGA Tour 07 represents perhaps the strongest push toward trying to replicate most of the stuff seen in real-life golf matches without them being, y'know, giant snooze-fests.
Wait, let me back up a little. Tiger is kick-ass for folks that dig the whole analog shooting system, and I for one, am probably in the minority in that I still love me some triple-tap shooting (a la Hot Shots Golf), but I'll begrudgingly admit that at least Tiger's analog shooting system is something different. Whether or not it's fun is largely going to come down to how you feel about giving up the kind of control that actual numbers are going to give you -- and the putting, no matter how you try to defend it, still sucks balls.
If you're going to get any fun out of Tiger, you're going to have to at least come to grips with the swing system (for those that don't know, you'll pull back, then push forward, and swinging on a bias lets you hook or slice a shot accordingly). The issue of lacking any real info on how hard you're hitting things is compounded this year by something EA is calling "true aim." It's essentially a misnomer, since you actually have less control over where your ball will land; instead of an exact position, you'll get a general circle. Hit the ball solidly, and you'll land somewhere in that square, but if you botch the shot -- and it's fairly easy to do so -- and it'll sail well beyond the bounds of where you thought you were going to land.
It's probably pretty telling that the game starts off by encouraging you to learn the new features right from the start (the intro with Tiger bouncing a golf ball on his club Nike commercial-style is a nice touch). You can jump right into things, but if you follow the game's advice, you'll use the extremely robust create-a-player feature to build your own character and then slowly get to work learning the ins and outs of the control scheme. This is time well spent, as it not only teaches you how to do shots, but teaches you the basics of controlling how low or high you're hitting the ball and how to control the spin in the air.
What is doesn't tell you is how the SIXAXIS is used. By holding L1 (or X, if you prefer) and tilting the controller, you can accomplish the same thing as if you used the analog stick. The option is... well, it's there, but the game doesn't really tell you. It's also not terribly useful as a technique, and represents the sole use of the SIXAXIS' motion sensors. Granted, there aren't really a whole lot of areas where you can use motion sensing stuff outside of the shots themselves, but it's still questionable that any was needed at all.
If you can wrestle with the controls long enough to adapt to them, you'll find an absolutely insane number of options in both single-player and online multiplayer. The sheer number of options for matches and scoring are impressive to say the least; Battle Golf lets you remove a single club per hole from your opponent's bag, One-Ball lets you and your opponent trade off with the same ball (thus forcing you to put them in crappy shot position since you have to hit a pre-determined spot on the course or you forfeit your turn; the person that actually sinks the putt wins), Bloodsome and Greensome let your opponent or yourself (respectively) pick which ball you want to use after the tee shot, and there are still plenty of more "normal" options.
Wait, let me back up a little. Tiger is kick-ass for folks that dig the whole analog shooting system, and I for one, am probably in the minority in that I still love me some triple-tap shooting (a la Hot Shots Golf), but I'll begrudgingly admit that at least Tiger's analog shooting system is something different. Whether or not it's fun is largely going to come down to how you feel about giving up the kind of control that actual numbers are going to give you -- and the putting, no matter how you try to defend it, still sucks balls.
If you're going to get any fun out of Tiger, you're going to have to at least come to grips with the swing system (for those that don't know, you'll pull back, then push forward, and swinging on a bias lets you hook or slice a shot accordingly). The issue of lacking any real info on how hard you're hitting things is compounded this year by something EA is calling "true aim." It's essentially a misnomer, since you actually have less control over where your ball will land; instead of an exact position, you'll get a general circle. Hit the ball solidly, and you'll land somewhere in that square, but if you botch the shot -- and it's fairly easy to do so -- and it'll sail well beyond the bounds of where you thought you were going to land.
It's probably pretty telling that the game starts off by encouraging you to learn the new features right from the start (the intro with Tiger bouncing a golf ball on his club Nike commercial-style is a nice touch). You can jump right into things, but if you follow the game's advice, you'll use the extremely robust create-a-player feature to build your own character and then slowly get to work learning the ins and outs of the control scheme. This is time well spent, as it not only teaches you how to do shots, but teaches you the basics of controlling how low or high you're hitting the ball and how to control the spin in the air.
What is doesn't tell you is how the SIXAXIS is used. By holding L1 (or X, if you prefer) and tilting the controller, you can accomplish the same thing as if you used the analog stick. The option is... well, it's there, but the game doesn't really tell you. It's also not terribly useful as a technique, and represents the sole use of the SIXAXIS' motion sensors. Granted, there aren't really a whole lot of areas where you can use motion sensing stuff outside of the shots themselves, but it's still questionable that any was needed at all.
If you can wrestle with the controls long enough to adapt to them, you'll find an absolutely insane number of options in both single-player and online multiplayer. The sheer number of options for matches and scoring are impressive to say the least; Battle Golf lets you remove a single club per hole from your opponent's bag, One-Ball lets you and your opponent trade off with the same ball (thus forcing you to put them in crappy shot position since you have to hit a pre-determined spot on the course or you forfeit your turn; the person that actually sinks the putt wins), Bloodsome and Greensome let your opponent or yourself (respectively) pick which ball you want to use after the tee shot, and there are still plenty of more "normal" options.
