As I mentioned earlier, today is a GREAT day for Tiger Woods golf fans. EA Sports debuted a plethora of videos showing off new golfers, new courses and its new live tournament feature for the next iteration of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 franchise, set to hit stores June 8th.
The new golfers, for me, are interesting selections that I'm not unhappy about, but perhaps a little dissapointed with. First up is the SoCal phenom Anthony Kim, who at just 23 years young shocked the European Ryder Cup team with four days of straight domination to help lead the US to victory. This to me is not a surprising pick, as Kim had an extremely successful 2008 campaign (especially without Tiger around). However, he's also sponsored by Nike (as is Tiger) and thus I'm sure it didn't hurt Tiger's negotiations with Nike to have another one of their athletes in his video game. Something along the lines of "you scratch my back" I'm thinking.
Second on the tee is Rocco Mediate, who by no means "deserves" to be in this game over other players like Phil Mickelson, but gets the nod because he's good friends with Tiger (as Tiger says in the video below). While I can appreciate Tiger's decision to include only friends in his game (I'd do the same thing) it does take away a little bit of the fun factor when players in the top 10 are missing from a game that is supposed to be THE golf game.
Also included in todays update is a new bundle of courses, including: Torrey Pines, Oakmont, Hazeltine, Pinehurst #2 and most importantly, the U.S. Open course for 2009 Bethpage Black. While it is unclear at the moment whether or not the course offerings in the Wii version will mirror those of the nex-gen consoles, the increase in course offerings (especially challenging ones) makes the Wii version that much more compelling, especially with a new Wii Motion Remote package.
To me the new courses is what really drives the enthusiasm for the next installment (as well as the new improvements). I like playing Pebble Beach every now and then, but when I see great courses on TV that I will likely NEVER get a chance to actually play on, it's nice of EA to provide me with the virtual experience. This way I also stop shooting 58's for a round of 18, which I've done too many times.
The finale to today's announcements is probably the biggest. The new Live Tournaments feature could easily turn Tiger Woods golf into the next World of Warcraft. I'll pause while you scratch your head on that one. Here is my logic: WoW keeps its user base ingaged through daily and weekly content that resets every week. If you miss out on a week, you fall behind, the same seems to be the logic for this new tournament system. If this ends up being the case, I think this could quite possibly be the greatest decision EA has made since putting John Madden on the cover of their football franchise. Not only will this increase the replayability ten fold, but could also expand the user base of the game.
There are three major modes for the live tournament that you need to know. The first one is the Daily tournament (seeing the similiarities yet?). Similar to in years past these will be 24hr long tournaments that crown a new winner each day. You’ll play your round and submit it to the tournament leaderboard. At the end of the day, that tournament ends and a new one begins. Within Daily’s there will be a number of different difficult levels to play. Each difficulty level will have its own unique settings. So if you suck, you can still compete with others who suck equally!
The next mode is Weekly tournament: These will be tournaments that last all week long (duh). They will start on Sunday, for example, and players can compete all week long. In Weekly’s you’ll submit four tournament rounds. The player with the lowest total four round score will win that week’s weekly tournament, just like the pros do it. Like in Daily’s there will be several difficulty levels to choose from, so you’re sure to find the right competition level for your golf game.
And finally, there's the coolest mode: Play the Pros! This tournament type will allow you to compete each week directly against the pro golfer’s scores from that week’s professional golf tournament. So, for example, when the game ships in June, you will be able to play against Tiger and the boys at the U.S. Open at Bethpage vs. their real life scores, at the course the tournament is being played at, with live weather and as the tournament is happening! These tournaments will start on the Thursday of that week’s pro tournament and go through the weekend. There will only be one difficulty setting for Play the Pros, since this tournament type is meant to be the ultimate golf test. EA has made sure to customize and tune the settings in Play the Pros tournaments to ensure your scores will be competitive against those of the real life pro golfers (read: No more 58's). One other unique aspect to Play the Pros tournaments is that unlike Daily and Weekly Tournaments, here, you will only be competing against the pro golfer’s scores. So there won’t be any other online gamers to contend with. I wonder how this will affect the golfers in real life, knowing that they not only have to compete in the real world with the field, but thousands of users at home who are playing as them (and possibly doing it better).
With all these modes comes additional online goodies including a player rating system where users can see how they're doing on the "Money List" as well as how you're doing versus the competition you're playing against. As well there's an all new tie-breaking system and the ability to tweek things after you've launched (a personal favorite of mine). You can also expect to see Mid-round updates and leaderboards while you're playing. Depending on which mode you are in, you will recieve the updates (read: if you're playing in the Pros mode, you will get real-time updates from the tournament) which I think is a pretty neat feature although it could prove distracting. Most importantly will be an upgraded Tournament HUB that will be your source for game updates post-launch including: Upcoming tournaments, new money leaders, tournament winners, hints/tips and much much more.
If you're not drooling yet, you must be dehydrated. Otherwise, go get a towel and clean up your mess. Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 hits store shelves in North America on June 8th.
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