Joystiq interviews Wes Culver, Tiger Woods Wii designer

by Zack Stern { Jan 22nd 2007 at 8:04AM }

After recently playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the Wii, we asked several questions of Wes Culver, lead designer of the game on that platform. In our brief interview, he discussed specific changes between the Wii game and the title on other systems, and he also described how the Wii's horsepower stacks up against the other consoles.

What are the differences between Tiger Woods on the Wii and the other platforms?

So the difference between the Wii and the other platforms is obviously the control. All the gameplay controls have been totally redone to take advantage of the Wii Remote. If you want to, you can even go back and plug in the Nunchuk to get the analog swing. You can do that, and you play it as you would on the PS2 or the Xbox 360. But everything from the swing, the draw and fades, the spin -- all that sutff has been mapped to the Wii Remote, one way or another.

Are there differences in options or modes between the systems?

There are minor mode differences, but for the most part we try to keep as much content as possible while keeping it fun, keeping it fresh. So the Tiger Challenge will have more game modes built-in which are brand new for Wii. We carried over fun arcade game modes like Skills 18, Target2Target, T-I-G-E-R, and Battle Golf. We have all of the regular, official modes like stroke play, match play ... so we have a lot for future golf fans.

What about differences in the quality between the systems? Was it harder to develop for the Wii?

It's harder ... are you talking like as far as the horsepower ...?

Yes.

So the horsepower of the Wii is not quite up to the par of the 360. It's a little bit better than what we saw on the Xbox and PS2. So the graphics fall somewhere in between, you know, the PS2/Xbox and the 360. We do support 480p widescreen, we updated a lot of textures; the sky domes, and the courses were all retouched, so they are updated as far as better than PS2 and Xbox. But they're not as up to par as Xbox 360 and PS3, which is understandable because that's what Nintendo is kind of going for. They're just trying to revolutionize the gameplay, instead of revolutionize graphics.

I think the biggest thing is the real golf fans get a great experience from Tiger because everything -- they can play the game as they would play on the course. They can have their natural golf, their natural slice. I have a natural slice myself, and I slice it in the game, so that is like proof of pudding that our swing is as close as any game has come as far as a real golf swing -- a real golf simulator. We feel that that is the biggest selling point for this title.

Tags: EA, Electronic Arts, ElectronicArts, golf, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, TigerWoods, TigerWoodsPgaTour07, Wes Culver, WesCulver

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

PurpleSfinx @ Jan 22nd 2007 8:58AM

Hopefully it works a LOT better than Wii Sports' golf. You'd expect it too, being a dedicated golf game, but look at the reviews for Far Cry. Sometimes they just don't get it right.

Garcian_Smith @ Jan 22nd 2007 9:17AM

@PurpleSfinx

What?

Firstly, Wii Sports Golf is awesome. I have played it, bot single and mulitplayer, extensively, and I'm always trying to beat my scores.

Secondly, FarCry is a poor example. It was a rushed semi-port by a developer who clearly thought Quantity>Quality.

Tiger Wood's actually sounds pretty good, I'll keep my eye on this.

AlexT @ Jan 22nd 2007 9:24AM

Wii sports golf works a treat if you ask me, mostly because of the 'simulator' element brought about by the wiimote. Moral: EA are going to have to go some way to stop this being an excellent little game.

NB - my current wiisports golf record is a solid 8 under par. Anyone here done better?

LIT25 @ Jan 22nd 2007 9:58AM

I'm sitting at 6 under for my record. I can get 3 under on each of the 3 hole groupings, but just never together for some reason.

The only drawback I see after HOURS of play (and that is an understatement, is that you only get one course!

Bringing me back to Tiger...15 licensed courses? That rocks!

If they have an online leaderboard feature like GoldenTee live, up the difficulty a little so not EVERYONE can easily get eagles, this game will do VERY well. I'm siked.

PurpleSfinx @ Jan 22nd 2007 10:06AM

@ Garcian_Smith

I totally disagree. Everyone I've played golf with has had a very hard time getting the power right, and, really, how hard you hit it is the only part of the game that the motion sensing uses.

I find it random and boring. Bowling however was spot on.

Stone Temple Pilot @ Jan 22nd 2007 10:14AM

I am at 9 under, but I will more than likely beat that soon - I just discovered 2 ways to shave a stroke off of my score on 2 particular holes. So 11 or 12 under is very possible for me.

vidGuy @ Jan 22nd 2007 10:17AM

I hated Wii Sports Golf until I learned how important the backswing was. Now I'm shooting 3 under par constantly, and I'm still improving. It's easily my second most favorite Sports game, behind Bowling, of course. The only thing that's goofy about the game is that hitting it too hard cause splice. Tiger Woods will fix that - you can hit it as hard as you want, but your turn of the remote adds hook or splice.

I've never been interested in Tiger Woods before because I've always thought it was rather boring, but with the Remote-swing, I'm definitely buying this on its release day.

Wolfe_boy @ Jan 22nd 2007 11:10AM

M only gripes with Wii Sports golf are that the putting is a little touchy as the wiimote doesn't really feel a lot of subtle movements when I'm putting, and the fact that the slice is random. The slice thing will be fixed by Tiget Woods, which is good news, and I think the putting is just me getting used to it. I'm getting better all the time at managing the power of all sorts of shots in all different situations. Seeing as I've only had my Wii for three days, I'm happy to be shooting even right now.