I was in the closed beta, not sure how much I can say. I didn’t play much, and the beta’s over now, but it looks like it’ll be a very nice replacement for the gaping hole in the genre.
I think calling Tiger Woods Online a “browser game” is a little misleading. IIRC, you download a client that is launched from a browser, similar to how The Hunter works. Is that right, LMN8R? Were the graphics as good as the console games?
Yep that’s right, there’s one initial up-front download, but it didn’t take very long, and loading was very quick after that.
Now the one thing I don’t remember was whether it’s like Battlefield: Heroes, where the browser launches something else separately, or Quake Live, where it literally does run in a browser window.
The graphics were very good. I haven’t played a console golf game in a long time, so I can’t really compare.
A little note. Quake Live also works like The Hunter of Bf: Heroes, in the sense you are executing external data files (400 MB you have to downland and it’s stored in documents & settings). It’s just some trickery from their own plugin that they can also render it in a browser windows, apart from the full screen option.
Dammit, you guys made me go and install SimGolf again.
Sid Meier’s SimGolf really needs to get on one of the digital services. Do you hear that Brad? Get some SimGolf on Impulse and you’ll have at least 4-5 Qt3 buyers!
So was I, which is why I was saying “looking good” just in case as I too wasn’t sure how much I could say…
Sid Meier’s SimGolf was awesome… I miss that game. I found it at a garage sale once and was super excited to install it… It worked on XP fine.
Love that game!
Sid Meier’s SimGolf is actually in my drive at the moment, as I had a desire to play it over the weekend. Other than crashing to the desktop when you quit, it works perfectly on Vista. Its as good as I remembered it being.
Links 386 Pro
Man the good times. I used to play in online tournaments via AOL even back in the day. Fantastic game. Great courses. <sniff> I would go out and buy something like this today again with a good online tourney mode.
I loved Meier’s Simgolf game and still have the game here. I didn’t realize that there was a Maxis version of it.
sigh
Damn, hard to believe that I posted this almost two years ago and things haven’t gotten any better.
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TW Online is an atrocity, where scores of -25, 400 yard drives and putt previews are commonplace. The wind’s impact on the ball isn’t consistent and the overall game is just…bad. Can’t believe they want a $40/yr sub for this.
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TW 12 wasn’t released for the PC. >.<
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Hank Haney Golf looks like it was coded by a 2 year old. The animations are some of the worst I’ve seen on any type of game in the last 10 years. Too bad, because it has a course editor too. I’m not brave enough to “buy and try” given what I saw on YouTube.
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John Daly Golf? 1 star rating at Amazon. Simply awful.
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Wolverine Studios Total Pro Golf? Can’t get into it because I really don’t control my guy all that much. It’s more of a sports text sim than anything else.
To get a decent golf game, you have to go back to TW 2008 AND buy TW 2006 to get the frickin’ course editor. Sid’s SimGolf is cute, but it’s not much more than a temporary diversion and the graphics are pretty poor nowadays. I still have it on my hard drive and toy around with it from time to time, but it’s just not the same as a traditional golf game. Plus, you’re too limited on the holes you can make.
I can’t believe there’s not a market for a decent golf game - there was one 20 years ago and the gaming populace is older now. Forget spending the money on a PGA license. Create a solid game, license with a handful of real courses and sprinkle in more fake ones, include a course editor…and PROFIT! Damnit, we have enough gaming developers here. Come on, someone please take my money!!!
sigh
You designed courses for JNSE…? I used to play the old Prodogy JNSE Tour and the Ham Hoc Tour and designed courses for JNSE. I still play JN6? (Golden Bear) in two on-line leagues although they have pretty much died out.
AAwwww, I miss all of these games, especially Links 386 Pro. Looooooooooved the hell out of that game. Is SimGolf fun?
It seems like Battlefield Heroes is all but dead, and I never hear or see anyone talk or write about Tiger Woods Online. They both have absolutely atrocious financial models which drove me away out of sheer principle before I ever considered spending any significant amount of time with them.
EA can’t possibly be making money on these two games, right? What the hell will it take for them to actually charge a reasonable price for their “play-for-free” games?
They cost more per year than a console game costs a couple months after release, and they still do the bullshit pay <x> for 3 days or <y> to keep forever.
I’d be perfectly happy to pay a couple bucks for a course, or a small 25-50 cents for cosmetic stuff. Maybe $1 max for permanent access to a Battlefield weapon. What EA is charging those is just insanity.
Sure did. Brian Silvernail and Ken McHale were better at it than I was (as were a number of others), but I wasn’t too shabby. I didn’t recreate any existing courses, but designed realistic fantasy courses. This was back in the days of BBS’s, so I doubt my stuff is around anymore. I had a blast doing it too. It was a fair amount of hard work, especially because you had a very limited number of objects you could put on one hole. Still, I’d love to try designing again if there was a decent game out there to do it on.
Yes, but it’s graphically very dated at this point. The game play is fun, but it’s not very realistic in the way that the game grades your golf holes. Stuff that would never fly in real life is encouraged in Sid Meier’s SimGolf.
Sounds like my kinda game! :) Thanks!
It’s not just PC golf games that are dead; it’s PC sports games in general.
Aside from FIFA, when was the last time EA released any sports game for the PC? From what I can tell, you’ve got to go back to NHL 09. And even that was just a port of the vastly inferior PS2 version.
Good point.
But of all the sports out there, I would figure that golf would be the easiest to do. You’re not going to have a successful football, basketball or baseball game without the NFL, NBA or MLB licenses. Which, of course, EA has locked up tighter than a drum.
But when it comes to golf, does anyone really care that much about the PGA license or even the names of the tour players? I don’t even know if the PGA license has been locked up. IMO, players would care much more about the courses included and how the game plays. There’s no major AI to code, just the physics of the sport itself. It’s not like there’s a playbook or interactions between different players. Heck, it’s not like the golfers even need to move onscreen beyond the swing animation. So there’s a lot of programming resources and licensing dollars saved versus other sports.
Yeah, it needs pretty graphics and a good swing meter (and a good mouse-swing). It needs excellent physics. A workable course editor. Some challenges and perhaps a tournament/career mode. Add in a practice green and driving range. Use Steam as your online service for mutiplayer matchmaking. Sell additional courses as DLC for additional funds.
I’m not saying that it’s not going to take some resources, but as compared to other sports, it would seem to me that golf would be the easiest sport to tackle for the PC. I believe there’s a good market for it too.