EA has launched the website for the next iteration of its Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf franchise, containing a list of new features, a producer interview, and some low res screenshots.

The 2007 PC version has a new gameplay mode called Team Tour, in which players recruit a crack team of golfers in order to challenge an all-star team led by Tiger himself. There are six new championship courses to tear your hair out on, including The Four Seasons and The K Club, and a new "risk meter" displays your chances of making that tricky bunker shot, which would seem to make things more abstract than necessary. In addition, EA's deal with ESPN has resulted in an integrated news service provided by the sports network.

Tiger Woods 07 is due out in October for PC and consoles.

You can always rely on the internet. Immediately after Zinedine Zidane's career ended in red, talented coders and graphics artists the world over started work on parodies. The Zidane Headbutt Game is one result. The aim is to get as many red cards as possible by repeatedly headbutting that smack-talking Materazzi character before the time runs out. More red cards are awarded for direct headshots.

Okay, so it's kinda crappy, but it's another example of this amazing thing we call the interweb. I'm sure there's a PhD student frantically working the Zidane parody phenomenon into their comm tech thesis right now.

The Sydney Morning Herald MashUp Blog has a nice collection of send-ups made by anonymous talents, including a NES version and a better flash game where the goal is to headbutt Materazzi as far as possible. Hopefully there will be a version that lets us play as Ronaldo, in which we have to take a dive at just the right moment. It will be the most realistic soccer simulation ever.

FILSCA, an association of simulation racing leagues, has announced the upcoming GTR 2 World Championship 2006. The online competition will involve the racing sims GTR and GTR 2, developed by SimBin and published by 10tacle Studios.


Interested drivers can find information about registration on FILSCA's website. Applications are open until 29 July 2006. Details about when the actual event will be held are not yet available, since GTR 2 has not been released. In the meantime, you can discuss the championship on the dedicated forum.

Unfortunately, the competition requires drivers to have league racing experience with the GTR game, which restricts the championship to the hardcore only. On the plus side, it means only serious drivers will show up. For those with the right qualifications, it sounds like an exciting event.

Apparently all games need stories nowadays, and stories need characters, and characters need actors. Hence the news that Canadian actress Emmanuelle Vaugier has signed on to appear in EA's upcoming Need For Speed Carbon.

She won't just be telling you to belt up and drive safe when you're hooning through the streets in your tricked out death mobile because, hey, it seemed fun in the game. Instead she plays Nikki, the ex-girlfriend of the main character. I can feel the dramatic tension already.

NFSUnlimited.net has posted EA's media release, which includes a word from the lady herself:


Indeed.

According to her rap sheet at IMDB, Vaugier has appeared in TV shows Two and a Half Men and Smallville, as well as numerous bad movies. She was also featured in Maxim's top 100 females list in May, which makes her highly qualified to market a video game.

Need For Speed Carbon is due in November on eleven (count 'em) different platforms, PC being one of them. The first person to make a nude patch gets a cookie.