I’m pretty frustrated with Tiger 2007. Based on the demo, I picked up a 360 for my Dad. He really liked playing Links with us and I figured Tiger 2007 would be perfect. So I got him all set up a couple weeks ago with the box and a Live account. I told him once the game shipped I’d mail him a copy and we’d have some fun. Little did I know the game would be completely fucking busted.
First of all the online functionality doesn’t even work. Tycho, Kiko, Robert and I have tried for the past three nights to get into a game together and only once did one of us even manage to get into the first layer of the warren they call a lobby. There’s no good Goddamn reason to make people use EA’s bullshit matchmaking system. Xbox Live works, their system does not. That’s it end of discussion. But let’s pretend for a moment that their pile of crap matchmaking service actually could connect people to one another. You would still have to navigate the cluster-fuck they call a UI.
Training your golfer should be easy but it requires you to navigate through multiple nested menus each one more fucking ambiguous than the last. Is training a part of my career? Is it a game mode? Is training the same as practice? There are times when I stumble onto a menu full of useful shit and I have no idea how I got to it or how to find it again. This is not a game that my Dad could just pick up and play. It’s a game I’m only barley willing to tolerate and the only reason I do is because the actual golf game that’s hidden away in Tiger 2007 is damn good. They just don’t want you to see it and they sure as hell don’t want you to play it online.
The most frustrating thing is that there’s no competition. Just like the NFL, EA has an exclusive deal with the PGA tour. So they can get away with dropping a pile of shit like this because there’s nothing else for us to play. What incentive do they have to make something good when there’s no other option for consumers? God help us if they ever actually succeed in buying Ubisoft, because that will be the end.
-Gabe out
