Hello everybody,
I would like to discuss the Tiger Woods franchise of games, particularly what I found initially good, then go rotten, then come up smelling of Augusta again with TW2012.....
If any of the below stated 'facts' are not facts at all it is because they are in-fact, 'facts' which have been assumed as such by derivation according to my playtime and experience of the games in question.
If you would care to enlighten me with the true facts of anything of which I speak then please, go ahead, make my day :-)
I shall begin by asking the question 'what went wrong with Tiger woods and when was that?' and I mean the game not the malfunctioning golf star himself......
The answer as far as my playtime goes is 2003, and why is that you may well ask....
Well again, from my own playtime experience and the games I have managed to get hold of Tiger Woods for the PS2, 2003 was the last time I ever played the popular franchise with an aim arrow which indicated the spot where the ball was projected to land, based upon the club and the shot selection you had made. If you changed the club the aim arrow would shift backwards down the fairway, the same applied for shot selection and the gamer knew exactly what he or she was facing. You had an idea of the potential pitfalls and objects along the way such as trees and shoulders of rough jutting out on to the neck of the green e.t.c. The aim arrow came with a zoom feature which was simply a marvellous feature that covered the in-transit path the ball would take from the player to the landing spot, everything felt right to me, you had an analytical aim tool which could be evaluated and judged and enjoyed as part of the 'game'.
The next of the Tiger Woods franchise I played was Tiger Woods 2004 for the PC, oh and how things suddenly changed - but for me at least, not at all for the better. The aim arrow had dissapeared and in its place I was confronted with a rather stubby crude looking outline of an arrow with about as much graphical beauty as the arrow icon found in MS word!! It was dreadful to look at and equally dreadful to play. Gone were the landing arrow, the zoom and the projected landing spot, and in their place.........nothing!! Oh how innovative, in a time when browsers were starting to go minimalistic so too was Tiger Woods golf. You 'aimed' your golfer according to the arrow and simply took your shot, you had no idea where the ball was going to land and the whole thing became less analyitical and more hit and hope - inexcusable from my vantage point of preference, sacrilage, blasphemy and a reign of misery that would last almost half as long as that of the original party pooper Oliver Cromwell - well my Christmases were cancelled for the next 8 years at least!!!
[I do not know if I am missing a fact or 2 here, were the PS2/3 Xbox console versions any different? were there ways to select the original aim arrow from the scantilly clad options menus the successive franchise endowed itself with? All I ever saw was the same clumsy looking arrow which gave no indication of where you were placing the ball, it just acted as a pivot and rotated the player about the Y-axis?]
I have just played a perfectly legitimate demo version of Tiger Woods 2012, the Masters (obviously I never downloaded an illegal torrent - that would be, well....illegal wouldn't it.....?!), I had been a little wary at first as I loaded the game up to a backdrop of internet wailing proclaiming this game to be a load of poo, 'go back to TW 08 because `12 is rubbish' was the overall mood I picked out.....
To my great surprise and delight the first thing I noticed about TW12 was......THE OLD FASHIONED AIMING ARROW!!! hey-ho the wicked witch is dead and time to reinstate Christmas was my initial thought which was only ever going to get better the further I ventured in to the game.
I took delight in aiming my shot up with full distance, elevation, lie and projected landing spot all at my disposal, I sucked my teeth as the zoom function hurled me forwards at scintillating speed along the flight path to drop me off exhausted and dazed at the landing spot......then I gurgled in delight with the new shot preview feature which could be switched either on or off - what a great way of acclimatising to the putt, tuning in to the break and most importantly standing a chance from the first point of contact with the game instead of finding myself blown off the course by shakey aiming sights and firing mechanisms and missing the putt entirely - from 6 inches if TW 07 was anything to go by - how 'offputting' for a game, perhaps a game that had lost its sense of 'game' in its pursuit of pure golfing experience (a bit like a littlwell known flash based browser golf game out there right now - all pumped up and missing your putts on your behalf 'whether you like it or not you're coming with me' type mentallity)....Then there was the new putting indicator 'high jump bar' which told me how much power I would need to apply in order to get me to the point of glory - how fantastic, the game is now instantly playable, enjoyable and most importantly anayltical again, you feel as though you're weighing things up again for the first time since 2003, hit and hope was now history!!
Then there was the spin control, back again after a conspicouos absense (and replaced with conspicuous shots such as 'high spin' in TW07 whatever a high spin is - answers on a postcard please), anyway good old fashioned spin was back on my key arrows and all these features could be played out on no less than 15 different courses including the most beautiful: Augusta National on which the game was based - it even gave a hole by hole depiction by way of the flowers on display - how utterly fantastic and what more could you want?
Well you could want a pro-shop or an in-detail face mock-up, but you'd have to buy the full version and go online for all that- something I would now be prepared to do after sipping the first honey nectar for 8 years, I reckon it's well worth it - just let me upgrade my crappy notebook with its crappy chipset with an i7 and a proper graphics card and it's a deal (something I intend to coincide with this game going live b.t.w).
The only question I really have is 'why so bad TW12?? why does everyone say it's crap when it is obviously the best TW game ever to grace our screens? am I missing something here? am I the only one begging to differ? are there others like me out there in the golf playing universe or am I scared of standing up only to be shelled with rotten tomatoes by everyone?
With all my reasoning and explanation how can you say TW08 is brill whereas TW12 is crap?
Yours ever confused,
deena.
