EA Sports is finally bringing Golf’s Greatest Tournament to the Tiger Woods PGA golf video game series. In years past, EA Sports have tried to bring in new courses and tournaments to their annual Tiger games, such as last year’s Ryder Cup and Beth Page Black U.S. Open course to appease the yearly golf consumers looking to replicate the PGA Tour in their living rooms. While appreciated by gamers worldwide, the one thing that Tiger Woods PGA Golf gamers have longed for is The Masters, and EA Sports doesn’t fail to deliver on Golf’s Greatest Course. From the very first time you pop in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12; one thing you’ll notice is everything is centered on The Masters and Augusta National. The career mode starts you out on the Amateur Tour and has you working your way up to the Nationwide Tour, Q School, and finally the PGA Tour itself. This career mode is a complete re-vamping from years past and like Fight Night Champion, makes going through a career a lot more meaningful.
Another new element to the game and career mode is the inclusion of the Caddy. Your Caddy starts with you in the Amateur Tour all the way throughout your career. As you progress through different goals at the various courses, you can Master 3 levels for each course that improves your Caddy abilities for reading greens and suggesting different shots for each level. The levels include Bronze, Silver, and Gold and each level is sort of a way to level up your Caddy just as you level up your Golfer throughout your career. Outside of the career mode, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 offers even more Masters themed activities. The game offers 9 different “Masters Moments” that are based on the most iconic or memorable shots in Masters History. Some of the shots included are Phil Mickleson’s shot from the Pine Straw in last year’s Masters, to Tiger Woods miraculous chip-in on Hole 16 in the 2005 Masters Tournament. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 also offers Tiger At The Masters that follows Tiger Woods through his previous 4 Masters victories. This mode starts with Tiger’s record breaking 1997 Masters Win all the way through his victory in 2005. Each year that you progress (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005) makes the difficulty get harder and harder. The mode also uses the real life scoring for each individual year.
To top off the Masters authentic feel, EA sports have an all new Broadcast Team of Jim Nantz and David Feherty. Jim Nantz’s iconic voice is heard every year as The Masters is broadcast on CBS and in my opinion would not be the same without him leading the commentating on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12. There’s a ton of new commentary between both Nantz and the very funny Feherty, but as with all 1st year commentary teams implemented into sports games, it does get a little repetitive after playing for a while. I feel EA Sports didn’t use the opportunity to really capture the excitement for the momentous occasion for winning The Masters and kind of left me feeling flat after all the build-up and hard work I had put into winning the tournament. The game comes packed with Augusta National and the Par-3 course as well as 14 other spectacular courses. There will be additional 20 courses for DLC, made up of 16 real-life PGA Tour courses and 4 Fantasy courses (Predator & Highlands) from years past. As for how these work in career mode is a 2-Edged sword because if you purchase a DLC course it is implemented in the career mode unlike years past, but if you don’t have the course for that particular week, you will have to purchase the course then or skip that tournament altogether. This year there are 25 weeks in a tour season and 19 of those events courses are included on the disc.
That means that 6 events (4 real courses & 2 fantasy courses) will have to be purchased to play all 25 events. 2 of the DLC courses appear every tour season and those 2 are: The ELS Club and Greek Isles. The rest of the DLC courses will be in a rotation from PGA Tour season to season. This maybe something to consider when looking at which courses to consider buying and EA also offers 2 different bundle packages of courses as well. While not having 6 events to play on the disc is a bummer, at least the DLC courses are integrated into the PGA Tour season this year and not just for stroke and versus play as with previous Tiger Woods games. Overall this is the best of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour games in several years, with the upgraded graphics, Augusta National and The Masters, the Caddie, a meaningful career mode, and the all-new Broadcast Team of Nantz and Feherty. If you are one of the few golf fans that have held off the last year or two waiting on new features or courses, wait no longer; this is the year that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters contends for sports game of the year.
