With only weeks remaining in that cycle (the game is due out in Europe in early September), we took a swing at both the Xbox 360 and Wii versions. Giving the team room to breathe a little, EA's powers-that-be handed then an 18 month development cycle (compared to 11 to 13 months even for huge games like FIFA and Madden). More importantly, though, moving to Tiburon allowed a new development team - many of whom had cut their teeth on massive franchises like Madden - a chance to inherit the well-respected series and try out some new ideas. Florida, as the developers are keen to point out, is the home of professional golf in the USA (Tiger himself lives just six miles down the road from the studio), with 180 courses in the city of Orlando alone. Golf's ascendance into the ranks of the world's favourite sports videogames has been rapid, and without continually delivering innovation and progress, its descent from grace could be equally rapid.Īt least in part, it's that pursuit of innovation which was behind the decision, almost two years ago, to move the Tiger Woods franchise from its original home at EA's Redwood studios to the studio in Tiburon, Florida. That his name adorns the most successful golfing franchise is no coincidence it's no more and no less than his right.Įven with Tiger's face grinning out of the packaging, however, EA can't afford to rest on its laurels with a franchise like Tiger Woods. Tiger turned around a sport traditionally seen as the preserve of rich white men with sagging paunches, making it fresh and interesting to a whole generation of young people - exactly the kind of young people who play videogames. Not EA Sports' licensed series which carries his name, but the golfer himself - young, handsome, dashing, so multi-ethnic that it'd make your head spin, enormously successful, and as a result, quite astonishingly rich. Ranging in seriousness from the cartoonish, arcade efforts of Sony's Everybody's Golf and Nintendo's Wii Sports through to the detailed simulation of today's subject, EA Sports' Tiger Woods franchise, golf games have ballooned out of their curious cultural niche to become a mainstream form of entertainment. However, the success of said games suggests that there are plenty of people who would disagree with Twain's assertion. Were he alive today, it seems unlikely that he'd be terribly impressed with the steady rise of golfing videogames over the past few years - a development which actually removes all of the walking from the equation entirely.
Golf, Mark Twain once observed, is a good walk spoiled.
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