I admit that I am excited about the release of Tiger Woods 12. I preordered my copy and it should be at my house when I arrive home from work Tuesday night.
I also think the folks at EA Sports have done a great job creating buzz for this game. Between Tiger Woods being on Jimmy Kimmel, constant video updates on Facebook and their site, Twitter driving traffic, media relations all over the place, the placement in the Best Buy weekly ad and the like. It has been a remarkable job.
The idea of being able to play Augusta National Golf Club — one of the most exclusive clubs in the United States and the course that golfers watch year after year — will be an automatic hit for EA.
I know people who aren’t as sick as me and don’t buy the new Tiger Woods game as soon as it is released who are fired up about this release. They are buying it for the first time in years. They are fired up.
But don’t be surprised if you see a little complaining later this week. Because there’s a little something that seems to being lost in the excitement.
That is that golfers aren’t going to be able to open the box, pop the disc in and suddenly tee it up at Augusta National. Like other Tiger Woods games, there’s much content that has to be earned. From what it seems, that will be the case with Augusta National.
I’m excited about trying to build up my career and tee it up at Augusta National. But I’m guessing there will be a lot of more casual players aren’t going to be so excited.
Jeff Shelman 
Jeff,
Interesting – I didn’t know that you needed to ‘unlock’ ANGC. I’m sure there must be a code to unlock it for the impatient sorts but I think I’ll be content to play through the career mode and unlock it that way.
Is there a lot of DLC available for this game (ie: Courses, Additonal Pros)? I haven’t purchased TW Golf for many years but plan on doing so sometime this week.
Hope all is well!
Matt
Matt,
I’m looking forward to checking it out tonight and will probably post more about the game. Don’t know exactly how many courses are on there, but I would guess in the 12-15 range. I know from the demo that they added the new TPC San Antonio course where they are playing tour stop there. From Facebook it appears as if there are a number of pros you can play with. I tend to create my own guy and just play as myself.
I have pretty much bought the new version of the game each year. I think it has gotten better over time and been more like real golf and not as much about 360 yard drives and 20-under rounds.
The caddy feature in the new game seemed cool from the demo as well.
When are you guys going to start playing real golf up there? I think we’re 1-2 weeks out still.
I bit the bullet and bought the game over lunch today. Not sure if I’ll crack it open until the weekend but we’ll see.
We were all set to open our club this past weekend but the big snowfall we received earlier last week has set us back. My best guess is that we’ll be playing during Masters weekend, so that’s a week and a half out. I’m all warmed up and ready to go after my Bandon trip so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!