Metareview - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (360)

by Blake Snow { Oct 22nd 2006 at 12:05PM }

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 hit the Xbox 360 this week to an overall review consensus that despite its updated visuals and career mode, the game largely remains the same. The title features six new courses, a revamped create a golfer mode, online tournaments with leaderboards, and 15 of the world's top players, including the obvious Tiger Woods, John Daly, Vijay Singh, Ian Poulter, Michael Campbell, and Annika Sorenstam. With a current average review score of 81%, here is what the critics are saying:

GameDaily 80% - "Delivers next-gen golf as it was intended, delivering realistic golf gameplay that challenges even the best players, the ability to create a golfer out of the blue, and a surprisingly robust online community loaded with events, tournaments, and ESPN Integration."
Games Radar 80% - "There are nits to pick, like having to hammer at buttons to bypass a predictable array of strolling animations, but Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 is still slick as hell, and any golf enthusiast should be thrilled to bits with the depth of play to be had within."
1UP 75% - "It just doesn't feel that different the previous installments. But since those previous installments were good games, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But publishers should stop holding content back from their next-gen sports games, especially when more full-featured versions are available at a cheaper price."

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Optimus Prime @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:11PM

EA: it should be Tiger Woods' PGA Tour 07 ..

Vince @ Oct 22nd 2006 1:47PM

"robust online community"

Well the online community would have to be robust to put up with this online bug hunt.

Did Game Daily actually play this online or did they just copy what was written on the back of the box?

BigL @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:39PM

Tiger Woods Golf sucks. I wish Microsoft would make another golf game where it had more of a "TV" style representation, like the one from the XBox. I get tired of the "third - ball - perspective" used in TW Golf while the ball is in flight.

D'juan Irvin @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:08PM

I just got Tiger Woods, but haven't gotten to it yet because of Splinter Cell: DA.

It seems there's a lot of good reviews on it so far, so I expect it to be a decent golf game.

DeLive @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:29PM

TW 2007 receives a 60% out of 100% for the 360. Yes I bought it and played it. My reasoning is simple.
1) They have taken the fun out of building up your character. The aiming system is SOOO hit or miss. Aim straight, hit right, aim left, her farther right, aim more left, hit way left. Pin is 27ft above you, hit with normal power and fly over the hole with no wind effect. Hole is 30ft below you, normal power fails to reach the hole. 13mph wind has no affect on the balls flight, but 5mph blows it off the course. The only way to avoid this? buy a maxed character or put up with it.
2) The PS2 version comes with 21 courses. the 360.. 12. Why? The game takes up 7.2Gb on the Dual Layer DVD, which maxes at 8.1 (or very close to it). Ther eis no way that it could hold that many courses. So you will have to buy the rest and pay well over $70 for a $40 PS2 game. This is in part MS's fault because they limited the amount of space by going with DVD instead of HD-DVD (Just to get a years lead, another story altogether). So to make things fail, the PS3 version will most likely come with the same content instead of making use of the space.
and 3) This is the same as last year and before and before. EA has a habit of minimizing effort when upgrading franchises. This is next gen TW, I would expect it to be built from the ground up, not cary ofer the same flaws from before (Though this is better than 06). Waiting through the animations when you know the ball is going in the water is punishing, just let me tee it up and go on. And watching the guy (or gal) in all the pre tee animations is unnecessary, unless it's been changed from last year.....

To wrap this up, minimal effort to maximize profit should not be accepted. If you have to get your TW fix, I would suggest 2005, the best version to date. Yes I know, the graphics are painful, but the game is so much better.

DeLive @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:33PM

Excuse the spelling please.

Johnny Hundo @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:15PM

I'm a big fan of the series (04/05 were great). I bought at launch the 06 version for 360 and feel that it was the single worst game at launch. For nothing other than you couldn't f'n control your swing while providing boost... (I really liked the white button's position for this game on Xbox). You could not configure the boost to be where you wanted it to be - and the left bumper button SUCKED ASS.

I haven't yet played the full version, but tried out the Demo, and THANK THE ALL KNOWING BEING WHICH RULES US - the boost button can now be the A button. First time I played the demo, I pulled: birdie, birdie, eagle. Oh hell yes. The game is back as far as playability is concerned.

Now the course number issue is something else all together... 08 - I might have to go with the PS3 version or it could come on 2 DVD's to make the world right again...

-Hundo

KilgoreTrout XL @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:39PM

Yeah, Hundo, the button map to "A" for boost was a welcome change. I think it's a fun game to play and it's got a really slick presentation. Very pleased with it.

Online doesn't lag either (so far), which is a *little* different from 06.

Steve2 @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:10PM

I'm with DeLive. 70% tops.

First of all, I played the demo and had to go out of my way to not birdie a hole. And I don't even play golf games and it didn't even explain the controls to me! And I didn't use any mulligans.

The graphics are weak. I couldn't say exactly what it is, maybe the meshes are low-res? There's no real shading. I mean, look at a 2000-era fps and a 2006-era fps. See the difference in not only texture resolution, but lighting/shading and geometry? Yeah, now compare 2000-era EA gold with 2006-era TW PGE 2007. The difference isn't nearly as large.

The game spend too much time showing Tiger Woods. Before very shot, etc. If I wanted to watch Tiger Woods play golf, I could watch that for free on TV most weekends. I want to (virtually) play golf, and that means I need to see the holes and the ball, not Tiger's face. It's probably because EA bought the Tiger Woods license, but why did they? They already had the exclusive PGA license, why the TW license too?

Then, for the 2nd year in a row, the game has less playable content on it than versions on previous generation hardware. I'm sure EA has an excuse for this, but I bet the short version is "we'll sell you those courses and more on Live for $5 a throw".

What does the spin control do? I had a shot to the green that I couldn't make because it kept spinning the ball back off the green when it landed. I tried putting forward spin on the ball and it didn't seem to do anything.

Anyway, thanks EA for letting me play the demo. And you didn't lose a sale, I wouldn't have bought it anyway. So the demo gave you an opportunity to make a sale you wouldn't have otherwise, you just didn't quite make the grade.

idesignit @ Oct 23rd 2006 11:50AM

A group of co-workers and myself do a lot of travelling for installs at various locations. Whenever we travel, one of us is responsible for toting along a beat up first run ps2, a pair of controllers, a memory card with our golfers, and tiger woods 05. We all have maxed out characters and all the unlockable goodies. When 06 came out we rushed out and bought it. We played it for 3 nights late at night after work a couple thousand miles from home and on teh fourth night we put 05 back in teh drive. Later we all got together bought a 360 and 06 TW thinking it was just teh ps2 version taht wasnt good. Well, we were wrong. We still do installs 1-2 times a month and every time we bring teh ps2 and TW 05.

I tried the demo of 07 on 360 and like an earlier poster said...."it was an opportunity to make a sale" and EA failed. This franchise is failing, and lack of courses is really getting old.

Danny70 @ Oct 24th 2006 7:00PM

The game is a huge disappointment. After several hours of play I was the birdie king. I also hate the locked content. If I wanted to waste time I would be playing world of warcraft. When will a good golf product some out? I miss Links a lot.

Does anyone know what World Golf Tour is all about? Looks like a new video golf game.