comes out later this month (August somethin)...this article is from april but might as well post it

Quote :

"After uploading your own picture and scanning your ugly mug onto a virtual golfer (and adding the mandatory pink mohawk), you head to St. Andrews. On 18, you unleash the big dog and smash a low, burning drive. Your ball ricochets off the famous stone bridge, skyrocketing into the air before landing on a spectator's head, knocking him to the ground. Before you can wipe the grin off your face you save a replay and upload it to EA's new GamerNet to share the clip with your friends. Then you throw down the challenge. Your friend downloads the clip, thinks he can do better, and jumps right onto the 18th and hits his own drive off the bridge and a fan's dome and earns 100 GamerNet points. Back at EA Tiburon, a designer sees this hilarious shot and makes it the Shot of the Day. Other gamers check out the shot and try it for themselves. Soon the off-the-bridge-and-fan shot is the most downloaded shot of the week and jumps up the GamerNet leaderboards. Soon, thousands of Tiger 08 gamers around the world are bouncing balls off the bridge, earning points and moving themselves up the GamerNet leaderboards. This is the future, and it's hitting the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this summer courtesy of EA Tiburon. Yes, the studio that Madden built has taken over the vaunted golf franchise and, as you can see, the development team has been busy. This week in Orlando, Fla., we saw GamerNet and Photo Face firsthand, two innovative new features that EA hopes will recharge Tiger, an excellent franchise that like, say, Winning Eleven, has begun to rest on its laurels. That stops here. GamerNet clearly targets the YouTube and MySpace generation. Gamers, EA says, have changed. We play online, we share pictures and video clips, we fight for achievement points and gamer score and virtual trophies. Using a nifty new technology, the development team, formerly of Hypnotix and Outlaw Golf fame, has enabled you to save a single shot, a single hole, nine holes or an entire round to your hard drive (18 holes takes up only 200k). And with a touch of a button, you can upload all of this to GamerNet in a matter of seconds. IGN's Jon Miller, known criminal."When you live in the MySpace and YouTube world," says producer Mike Taramykin, "you realize that everyone is connected. We looked at user-created content and said, 'What about user-created gameplay?'" User-created gameplay took shape in a new challenge system. Let's say you're 300 yards out and stick the ball inches from the pin on the highest difficulty setting. EA has set point values for all of these variables. The longer the shot, the more points you get. The closer to the hole, the more points you get. The higher the difficulty setting, the more points you get. Once you upload the clip and the point value is set, other gamers can download it and try to beat your shot, earning these challenge points along the way. "This is more than 'look what I did,'" Taramykin says. "This is 'I'm better than you and I can prove it.'" IGN's Jon Miller transitioning into a virtual golfer.The challenges can be as simple as a single shot or as complicated as hitting 18 consecutive eagles or even 18 hole-in-ones (on a custom course of all par threes, of course). But to create one of these impossible challenges, you have to first do it yourself -- user-created gameplay, remember? Then, a challenger can watch each of your shots and see exactly how you sank 18 eagles at Pebble. What this also does is allow you to play online against a friend without a friend actually being online. Let's say Xbox 360 editor-in-chief Doug Perry shoots a 60 at TPC Boston (please, try to use your imagination here.). When he uploads the round to GamerNet and takes the rest of the day off to play Zuma, you can then download the round and play right along with him. You'll see his shots (or skip them), and then you'll take your own swings. When you score in the 50s, Doug will receive a message that his 60-in-Boston challenge was beaten, and you'll pile up the points. Now those challenges are for the hardcore golfer. What about the players that just want to fire their drives into the gallery? Remember, you can save any shot to GamerNet. If something strange happens like you slice a drive off a house, bounce twice on the path and hit a fan, then you simply upload the clip and show your friends. After the laughing dies down, you can make a challenge of the shot by selecting up to three different "win conditions" -- hit a building, hit a fan, and two bounces on the car path, in this case -- and GamerNet will automatically assign a point value to the shot. The first gamer to complete your challenge will get double points, encouraging a race to complete newly-created challenges. With such a variety of possibilities, EA has separated GamerNet into a few themed channels: Single Hole Challenge, Nine Hole Challenge, 18 Hole Showdown, Grip it and Rip It (your basic long drive contest), and Freestyle (trick shots). A search feature will help you sort by point values and help you locate your friends' challenges. EA is hoping that GamerNet will take on a life of its own as users compete for GamerNet points and spots on leaderboards. With a staggering number of win conditions -- ball height, air time, skim a water hazard and land on the green, to name a few -- the challenges will inspire an entire online community to go off the roof, off the seat, off the backboard, nothing but net, ala Bird and Jordan years ago. As all of GamerNet is server-driven, EA can continually update GamerNet based on user preferences. The idea is not to limit content, but to encourage it."

8/7/2007 11:32:40 AM

Quote :

""Every day we come up with a new good idea," says Taramykin. No longer a known criminal, Jon Miller the full-time pro golfer.While a successful GamerNet could revolutionize online play, the new Photo Face feature is the next logical evolution of the character creator, known in Tiger as Game Face. The idea isn't new: take a picture of yourself and upload it on a character model. While we've seen this before with mixed results in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, Tiger 08 takes it to an entirely new level. First you import a front and side photo from the Xbox Live Vision Camera, the Sony Eye Toy or a picture on your PC. Next you simply match up a number of markers with key points on your face, like eyes, nose, lips, ears and chin (a template shows you exactly where to put the points). Finally, hit go and Tiger 08 starts building a brand new character head (rather than wrapping a photo texture around a blank face as in Rainbow Six). "Tiger has easily the greatest player creator in sports," Taramykin says. "But that came out in 2004. It's time for an overhaul." You can see the results of my first Photo Face, which EA was kind enough to create. The team only used a front photo -- a side photo makes for even more accuracy. My new head blinks and smiles and grimaces and grins and everything else the lifelike characters in Tiger tend to do. But I'm bald and my new head reminds myself of Lex Luthor in a polo shirt. But my new head and I can go right into the traditional Game Face mode and add a new hairstyle, tweak color and even elongate my nose, if I so choose. If I want I can create a head for every day of the week and one for special occasions. If I want I can upload Nick Nolte or Richard Nixon or Brad Pitt pictures, depending on my mood. "Can you put a head on a female body?" asks Taramykin. "That's up to you. I don't recommend it." And the answer to the question all of you are trying to ask is no, you can't create Ass Face. "The first thing we tried to do," Taramykin says, "is create Ass Face. Thankfully that won't work." What will work is bringing your ugly mug online and in GamerNet. While parental controls can be tweaked so that online faces will appear as Tiger, EA is hoping Photo Face -- a working title -- will be an outlet of creativity. And mohawks. "We want to create celebrities out of people that play," Taramykin says. Simply create a character, knock out a few fans, upload the clip and you are well on your way. While GamerNet and Photo Face are excellent new additions, Tiger wouldn't by Tiger without a solid experience on the course. We weren't able to play, but we did learn some new details about Tiburon's plans for gameplay. As Woods lives only 15 minutes away from the studio, he's been an invaluable resource for Tiburon. "We want to re-create what Tiger thinks about when he plays golf, not what I think about when I play golf with a controller," Taramykin says. The first feature is player confidence. Throughout a player's career, his confidence will ebb and flow for a variety of shots. Just two years ago Tiger was in a slump -- if you can call it that -- and had lost confidence in his drive. Other players may get nervous hitting over water or trying to draw the ball. In Tiger 08, player confidence will change for different shots dynamically through a player's career, still based around the FedEx Cup. Confidence will affect the size of the True Aim landing area, introduced in Tiger 07. Taramykin says the team is also focusing on shot making. This year, fade and draw will play prominently into shots as the mechanic has been revamped with a new visual indicator. Instead of guessing where a successful draw will land, you will now know exactly where you are headed. Weather and conditions will also play a bigger role in Tiger 08. On a nice day, when the pins are in easy locations and the weather is calm, any player can win a tournament, Woods told EA. But when the pins are in tough locations, a strong wind is shaking the sticks and the greens are fast, there are only about 10 players in the world that can win consistently. We also know that there will be only 15 courses on the PS3 and 360 -- too few, we say. But look for Boston, Westchester, Cog Hill and the rest of the FedEx Cup courses to be included. There are still a few months weeks (TreeTwista) before Tiger 08 hits stores, but if the new features we saw this week hold up, videogame golf will never be the same. Tiburon revolutionized football years ago. Golf is up next."

8/7/2007 11:33:05 AM

August 28th release date. I'd like to pick it up (PC) but it will need to have some significant changes. The only difference between 07 and 06 was the number of out-of-the-box courses. Things have remained pretty much the same since 05.

8/7/2007 12:25:14 PM

Do they still release EA Sports games for the PC?

8/7/2007 12:30:10 PM

^^any cool mods for the PC version lately?

8/7/2007 1:29:41 PM

did this really need its own thread?

8/7/2007 1:34:05 PM

yes

i couldve put it in the 360 games thread but its out for more systems than just the 360

8/7/2007 2:25:48 PM

if anything, i think they should always err on the side of MORE courses

8/7/2007 6:34:15 PM

^seriously...even if they want to charge you to buy extra ones online...at least give the option...the photo incorporation in the gameface sounds cool though...might have to pick up one of the Xbox360 cameras

8/7/2007 6:37:11 PM

sounds like you'll be able to do it without needing the camera (upload from PC)

8/7/2007 7:10:09 PM

Quote :

"Do they still release EA Sports games for the PC?"

Yes, except for NCAA games.

8/7/2007 7:15:21 PM

Quote :

"any cool mods for the PC version lately?"

I've only gone down the player created courses route. I usually just grab all the highest rated courses and I make sure to always pick up Pinehurst.

8/8/2007 7:18:46 AM

Well this came out yesterday and I picked it up (PC).

I only got to spend about 30 minutes with it. Just long enough to do the game face and a few practice holes.

They have made some improvements over previous incarnations but I'd be hard pressed to say that they are anything that warrants buying it at the current full retail price. They've mixed up the presentation of the scenarios a bit this year but it really amounts to the same scenarios of the last 3 or 4 versions of the game.

I can't remember which year it was when they had the scenarios separate from playing the legends (which were arranged in a pyramid), then the next version had both mixed together. Things really haven't changed since the version where they mixed them together... it's just that they put a new interface on it each year. One year it was time travel. This year it's a honeycomb.

The graphics have improved a bit. I haven't noticed any difference in the game face character design going on a 3rd year. I don't think they've even so much as added a new hair style or single piece of extra clothing.

Since I didn't have enough time last night I didn't get to start up a real game, just the practice level so I didn't get a chance to hear the commentary. Since that hasn't changed in at least 4 years I'm sure that the commentary is the exact same as previous years. "You've gotta be happy with that birdie, you've got to be happy with any birdie" "What do you see? I see a straight shot, 150 yards to the hole, and I see dead people" (yes, they've probably been doing that one since the movie came out) etc.

They've changed the on course HUD to match the game's honeycomb motif. One improvement that I did like was the honeycomb that is dedicated to telling you the current distance that your club will hit the ball. In previous versions you had to mouse over the club selection, adjust your shot, re-mouse over the club selection to see what your adjustment did, and repeat until you got it right. Now when you adjust your shot the distance is updated right on the screen. No more back and forth.

It's a pretty solid game and runs pretty smoothly. I've got an aging PC but everything runs really well for me.

8/29/2007 7:30:47 AM

That was sub human, super human...something not human

8/29/2007 9:38:55 AM

IGN gave this an 8.5 on the 360. Like a 7.1 on the Wii.

8/29/2007 9:45:07 AM

i would have thought the wii would have did better

8/29/2007 9:48:15 AM

i always tell myself that they haven't changed shit from year to year and i'm blowing $60 on a couple new courses

but somehow i always end up taking the plunge and have bought tiger for the past four years

8/29/2007 10:01:18 AM

yeah, like madden too, but the difference with madden is that the new rosters make it more realistic and somewhat warrant a purchase.

8/29/2007 10:04:58 AM

There was never a reason to purchase madden 2006 or 2007 for the 360.... 2008 seems to be the first decent one.


I may by Tiger 2008 just for the face mapping feature

8/29/2007 10:08:01 AM

i'm the same way with madden, too.

and yep, the facemapping feature will be my demise

8/29/2007 10:14:14 AM

A bit of a warning to anyone considering the PC version...

No face import feature
No course architect/uploader

No word yet on whether the 07 versions of the later will work with 08, but there are sure to be some player created tools if EA doesn't step up to the plate.

Avoid the PC version for now (like any of you were going to get that version anyway).

8/29/2007 10:56:41 AM

any thoughts on the Wii version?

8/29/2007 11:10:16 AM

Quote :

"IGN gave this an 8.5 on the 360. Like a 7.1 on the Wii."

8/29/2007 11:18:44 AM

if they move away from the control system used in 07 and got to a 1:1 swing style, i think it will be amazing


07 was dissapointing in that wii golf was a more realistic golf game than tiger 07 :x


hopefully they fix it

8/29/2007 11:35:43 AM

ign pretty much dogged the wii version because it's essentially the exact same game they released 5 months ago. rightfully so.

8/29/2007 11:57:49 AM

Quote :

"A bit of a warning to anyone considering the PC version... No face import feature"

whoa whoa whoa...wtf on the import feature

8/29/2007 12:10:20 PM

^^ which was a let down because it was supposed to incorperate the 1:1 motion and be a revolutionary game... but instead they half assed it.

8/29/2007 12:18:00 PM

^^
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=271673&tstart=15

8/29/2007 12:29:43 PM

i never cared about getting the XBox Vision or whatever the camera is called cause i could care less about video chat (audio chat is fine with me in online games)...but the face mapping thing might warrant that purchase

anybody know if you can use any kind of computer USB webcams for live? i've got some $100 logitcech webcam but havent tried plugging it into my 360

8/29/2007 12:47:36 PM

it probably will be so laggy that you might as well by the 360 webcam use it and take it back

wally world ftw

8/29/2007 12:57:46 PM

hell yeah wally world helped my first hiatus sendin my box back to M$

8/29/2007 1:02:04 PM

I tried another webcam with mine but it did not work. I got the Vision Camera for the face mapping pretty much, plus I though the game Totem Ball (Where you play via the cam) would be fun... it is somewhat interesting... but not good by any means.

[Edited on August 29, 2007 at 1:55 PM. Reason : Rainbow 6 uses it too]

8/29/2007 1:54:33 PM

If any of you guys are like me and trying to set up your photo game face, you're out of luck
cause if you go to the website you get this:

http://easportsworld.com/#TIGER


they claim the demand exceeded their server capacity

[Edited on September 1, 2007 at 2:03 AM. Reason : none]

9/1/2007 2:01:22 AM

pics?

9/1/2007 7:13:31 PM

But can I create an ass-face? That's the only reason I'll buy the game.

9/1/2007 8:32:07 PM

9/1/2007 8:36:07 PM

The game's been out almost a week now and they still don't have the photo game face working

9/3/2007 4:10:51 PM

i hear there's a problem with the 360 version, like locking up between holes 2 and 3

9/3/2007 7:58:01 PM

9/3/2007 8:34:40 PM

Quote :

"I hear there's a problem with the 360 version, like locking up between holes 2 and 3 "

It locks up at the same point everytime in the Tiger Challenge which would make it impossible to complete but they've released a method for working around it until the patch comes out in a few days........the main annoyance I have with it is that one of the most hyped features of the game still isn't working a week after release

9/3/2007 8:48:45 PM

Well at least you'll get the hyped feature. A month ago the PC crowd thought they'd be getting it as well.

One odd thing about the game... in the Tiger Challenge you get attribute points for beating the golfers. It's odd how you could completely fill all your attributes three times over by the time you complete all the challenges.

When you manually increase your attributes focus only on increasing putting. There is only one golfer that gives you 10 putting attributes when you beat them. The rest of the golfers give you enough points to completely fill your attribute bar without having to add any manually. IIRC if you add up all the golfers that add to your power attribute it comes out to be more than 100.

[Edited on September 4, 2007 at 8:48 AM. Reason : -]

9/4/2007 8:46:46 AM

question

if you dont have a xbox camera, but you do have photos of yourself on your computer, can you use those for your character's face mapping? is it difficult? can you pull them right off a computer on the same router/network or is it better to put them on a USB flash and plug directly into the 360?

9/4/2007 12:29:00 PM

Quote :

"if you dont have a xbox camera, but you do have photos of yourself on your computer, can you use those for your character's face mapping? is it difficult? can you pull them right off a computer on the same router/network or is it better to put them on a USB flash and plug directly into the 360?"

You can use photos from a digital camera for the photo game face feature but you can't do it over a network or via USB. You have to go to http://www.tigerwoods08.com, log into a special section of the site and upload the pictures, then you can access them through your 360. The problem is, the section of the site that lets you upload the picture has been down for over a week with the message "The overwhelming demand for the photo game face feature has exceeded our server capacity, we will have it up and working again as soon as possible"........oh really, as soon as possible? You're a billion dollar company and you can't add some exta server capacity in over a week?

That being said, I did manage to get logged in last night and upload a front view of my face (you're supposed to upload a front and side view for optimal results but it crashed before I could get the side view uploaded) and create a character using just the front pic and its scary accurate.

[Edited on September 4, 2007 at 1:45 PM. Reason : ]

9/4/2007 1:45:13 PM

^gotcha...EA generally has some server issues when games are first released...hopefully this is something they can get resolved in the next week or two...good to know though

9/4/2007 1:46:39 PM

just beat the whole tiger challenge!

9/4/2007 11:30:40 PM

I love the demo. I just don't feel like buying it right now.

9/4/2007 11:57:52 PM

played it on my wii last night.

its a goood game.

"
holy crap... so i put in tiger woods 08 last night, and man talk about a difference...

07 was sooo easy, 08 is pretty tricky compared. they def. tweaked it up a bit. and it even goes into swing detail, you can set your player up with the swing stance that you want.

man, its goooood stuff, but real damn tricky. its nothing like 07. they did good "

from the wii thread

[Edited on September 5, 2007 at 9:33 AM. Reason : er]

9/5/2007 9:33:32 AM

http://www.sportsgamer.com/content/1011/happy-vs-tiger/

9/5/2007 5:09:43 PM

Cool, but I still plan on trying to make an AssFace to take online.

9/5/2007 5:13:11 PM

I'm thinking a Christopher Walken golfer would be fairly gangster

9/5/2007 5:16:55 PM