Back Nine Blog

We are now officially less than a month out from the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (and what a long month it is going to be).  Within this next month, we’ll start to get in hands on reports and more extensive details leading up to the August 26th release date.  Please enjoy the blog from Tiger 09 Producer Travis Sailer by hitting the jump.

Continue reading ‘Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 News: Producer Blog on New Courses’

July 9, 2008 – Golf is a social game. It may not seem like it when you’re lying on your couch at home watching Tiger Woods fist pump his way to another major championship, but taking to the course with buddies is always more fun than making the trek alone. Sadly the opposite has always been true with the Tiger Woods videogame series.

If there’s one thing that has always deterred me from joining up with three friends for a round of golf at the virtual representation of my home course, the TPC at Sawgrass, it’s the fact that it takes four and a half hours from start to finish. It’s a mind numbing exercise in patience as each golfer steps up to their ball, measures the shot, and slowly and methodically takes that fateful swing of the club. Repeat four times and you’ll begin to get the idea of why the online play in Tiger Woods golf has always been overlooked.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 is looking to change all that by including a mode known simply as Simultaneous Play and from my time with it I can say that it lives up to its name. It’s not all that dissimilar to what was available before. Four players join up, pick a course, tune its difficulty to their liking and then start whacking away. But instead of being forced to watch the swing animation carry out for each player you now only see your golfer. Unless you finish the hole early, in which case you’ll watch your competition finish their shots.

Your opponents’ progress is tracked in the lower right by a readout that tells you where they are on the hole. There’s also a super-cool tracer that streaks off into the distance, showing you the exact trajectory of their shot. You don’t get to see what club they used or any other tweaks they may have made — like draw/fade or the angle of their club — but you’ll at least have a frame of reference for bragging rights off the tee.

The change likely doesn’t sound like much, but it speeds up the game quite a bit. What would have been a three-hour affair can now be completed in well under an hour. Not only does it speed up the game, but I’d go as far as to say that it’s even more fun than the online mode prior. Not being able to see what club your opponent is using, which ups the challenge for your upcoming shot, yet still being able to talk smack about their awful pitch out of the sand is great.

Now all EA has to do is figure out the connection issues and Simultaneous Play should be good to go. The game is still in its alpha stage so there’s plenty of stabilization to be done, especially to the online mode. During my time I was constantly being disconnected and losing synchronization with my opponent’s Xbox 360. Again, all of this should be smoothed out by the game’s ship date of late August. The only other caveat with regard to Simultaneous Play is that it can only be used in stroke play as of right now. Other modes can still be played online, just not with everyone playing at once.

The course that my opponent and I chose for our simultaneous battle was a new addition to the Tiger Woods roster called Wolf Creek. The course is located in Mesquite, Nevada and was ranked the third toughest course to play in the nation by the USGA (United States Golf Association). Judging from the full 18 holes that I got to play, I’d tend to agree. Wolf Creek has tons of drops and changes to the course’s elevation that, coupled with some serious twists and turns, make for an awesome challenge.

There was one hole that really stuck out to me as being a true test. It housed a severe dogleg left with a 65-foot downward change in elevation. As it continued to carve away to the left I found myself weighing the risk-reward of the situation. Either I blast the ball with my driver and risk hitting into the dirt — which is also a lateral hazard and a one-stroke penalty — with the small chance of legging it out to the green or I play it relatively safe and hit a lofty shot onto the fairway. Neither is easy because of the drastic change in elevation, but going for the green and sticking it could make the difference between being tied and taking a crucial one-stroke lead.

Wolf Creek is filled with these situations. Moments that will have you thinking, “I know I can get it there, but if my swing isn’t dead-straight, I could seriously hurt my scorecard.” It’s that internal struggle that you typically don’t find with more traditional courses which makes Wolf Creek a worthy addition to Tiger’s stable.

Tiger 09 performed well during our online match, but it would have been a bit less of a headache had the connection issues not continued to pop up. The build was still very early and I was playing someone literally a country away. Nonetheless Wolf Creek was ready for primetime and with a few more weeks in development I’m sure the online play will be smoothed out in time for Tiger 09’s August 26 release date.