Along with all the content and courses found in the standard Masters Edition, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 Collector's Edition features five additional courses developed exclusively for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2012 is a solid golf game with great graphics and nice customizable features. Playing the Master's tournament is fun, and experiencing the new courses, sights and sounds make this is an enjoyable experience. However, EA's greed and complete lack of respect for the people who buy their products is finally starting to take its dreary toll.
As I mentioned before, the graphics and sound in this new installment are the best yet in the series. Everything from the birds chirping, to the wind blowing, to spectators chattering, this game demands to be played whilst wearing headphones. The commentary is one of the freshest changes this year with Jim Nance calling the swing by swing. Whether he's commentating golf, football, or basketball, I've always respected the guy for having a sense of humor, and a fresh and enthusiastic voice on the sports he's involved in.
The new courses are pretty cool as well. You can go to ancient Greece, Africa (complete with lions and tigers roaring in the background), and a few other exotic locales that serve up some nice challenges.
I enjoyed how "Tiger's Moments" and "Master's Moments" are integrated into your career as a player. In the past those things felt more like a side chore that had nothing to do with your skill level or advancement in career mode, but now you must complete these things to make you a better pro.
Using skill points to buy things from the shop remains unchanged, and your golfer will advance nicely into the Tiger Woods Master's, provided you make some additional purchases (more on that below).
These positive things are just enough to keep the average golf gamer happy and challenged for a long while. Having said that, nothing much has really changed from last year, apart from a few peripheral ideas that fall flat on their face.
Undeniably, the worst addition of this year's Tiger game is the caddy feature. It offers absolutely nothing to the experience other than having to remove him from the screen each and every single time you get ready to hit the ball. You can disable the caddy from speaking, but that still doesn't mean he disappears from the screen. Every play, he'll be there, waiting for you to sweep by him so you can actually line up your shot. The voice of the caddy is unbelievably annoying, as well. Those of you who have played the Mass Effect games will recognize this voice as that of Kaiden, who more or less sounds like a mentally deficient surfer dude. Even if the caddy was offering sound advice - which he doesn't always do - you'd turn him off just because of his grating voice. Your caddy gains more experience as you progress in the game, and so his pointers are supposed to get better and more accurate, but the fact is, you just don't need him. After a few rounds of experimentation on the golf course, you'll know what to do without him blathering away in the background.
Those of you who plan to play this on the PS3 and use the Move feature will be disappointed as well. The swinging system is just broken with the Move, and after a few frustrating games of watching my swings be completely off with my movements, I gave it up and played the old fashioned way. Something happens when you pull back to hit the ball where the Move controller just never gets it right. The swinging is almost never accurate, and it ultimately feels clunky and awkward.
The biggest slap in the face when it comes to this game, though, is the requirement to purchase additional golf courses in order to get the full Master's experience. As you go on in your career, you will notice courses you must master in order to finally wear the illustrious green jacket. You can skip by certain courses, but your skill levels will take a hit, and you'll have to move ahead onto something else because a course isn't available. Of course, it's available for a small price that EA has arbitrarily set. Some courses cost three dollars, others seven. That's right: SEVEN DOLLARS. Why the price discrepancy? Are some better than others? Sure, you can buy the "Eagle Pack" for 35 dollars which includes the rest of the available courses (this is if you bought the PS3 collector's edition which charges an additional 10 dollars for five extra courses, giving the illusion that you're getting some kind of deal). Otherwise, if you want to get the truly full experience of the Master's, well, you're going to have to cough up a little extra dough for the privilege of playing a game made by EA.
EA really needs to be careful with how they nickel and dime consumers in the coming years. Are you telling me that advertising a Master's game but not giving you the full experience for 60 bucks (70 bucks if you bought the Collector's Edition) is good enough? Does it mention that these additional courses are not available on the game disc itself? Nope. Punishing consumers for buying your product only to find out they didn't quite get the complete version is unacceptable. You can't justify it. Keep in mind that EA is also punishing people who buy used games by charging them an additional fee to have the privilege of using their servers. EA is becoming insanely greedy, and consumers will slowly begin to take notice more and more as the months wane. This needs to be said! I understand that EA is a business, and businesses need to make money, but not making this clear on the game case is a misrepresentation of the product.
Tiger Woods 2012 is a solid game, but you have to factor in ethics and fairness in this case. You can't make DLC a requirement to enjoy the full experience of the Master's. No matter how fun a video game is, there comes a time when consumers must speak with their wallets, and I, for one, will not be buying another Tiger Woods game until this glaring greed is erased for good.
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