Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

Another year goes swinging past, an extra few pounds have been added, hair care becomes more of a premium, and the handicap is getting no better even though you seem to be playing more. So what better way to self improve your golf by playing the new arrival of the Tiger Woods franchise.

That’s right…another year, another TW title with a bigger number than the last tagged onto the end, in this case 10, yet with very little changed from its predecessor, or so it would seem.

To veterans of the Tiger Woods series, the new edition has some much needed upgrades. Most significantly a new putting mechanic. In previous versions you lined up your putt pulled back and forward with no regard for timing and watched the ball disappear home. No longer is this the case, a new power meter on screen regulates how hard and clean you strike your putt, getting it wrong can ruin your scorecard. This new mechanic adds much more realism to the simulation. As any golfer will tell you we all get a little twitchy over those swinging four footers, do I power it through the break? do I trickle into the hole taking in all the turn? These questions now have to be applied in game and greatly enhance the experience.

Tiger 09 delved into the world of online play with relative success, nothing would give you more satisfaction than draining a 60 foot putt to claim a match against three drooling yanks, who throughout the round were screaming ‘In the hole’ at any given opportunity. Thankfully the head to head modes of online play have remained in tact and are still very enjoyable. But now comes a new kind of online play, tournament mode. Monthly, weekly, and daily tournaments can be entered at a range of different skill levels, this is great fun pitting your skills against the best online players. My particular favourites are the ones in which everyone uses the same capped player thus levelling out the playing field. My only complaint is that not enough of the tournaments are capped at one entrance only, for example, if you are having a mare and hacking all around the course you can just quit and start again, this takes away the pressure and skill of consolidating a good round, and thus scores of 20 under are seen on the leaderboard because they only submit the perfect round. Once you have registered to play a tournament just like the pros you should have one chance at getting it right, and if not, well tough. That’s golf.

All the new additions might have improved the experience, but there are still flaws. However, these are mainly cosmetic. Thankfully, you can choose to turn off the poorly scripted, poorly voiced and inappropriately placed commentary. It really does bring the game down. Some extra collision detection in the trees would be nice too. After snaking a ball right behind a tree I found I could stand inside it and play my shot. On numerous occasions the ball has been sent deep into the rough, yet the next shot is played from the short grass, much to the annoyance of my opponent. I still find it odd that there seems to be no way of viewing the contours of the green before a long approach shot. With the new putting mechanic making those down hill putts more difficult it would be good to see where to position the ball for an easyer up hill putt. The pros use green layout books on the course so maybe that kind of thing could be implemented here.

The good points far out way the bad and this is the best version of the game on the market. Well worth purchasing even if you already have last year’s.

8.5/10

Secondary Comments – Anthony Barlow

Not being much of a golf fan, I had rarely played the Tiger Woods games. I’d dabbled, but it had never grabbed me. This year I was determined to at least try and get into the game. To my surprise, I did and I enjoyed what I played.

Having not played the other games in the series I have no bar in which to set this. In some ways, that’s going to be bad for the review. I prefer to call it a review from “another perspective”. I know Matt knows the sport and the Tiger Woods franchise well, hence why I gave him the review, however I wanted to, ahem, chip in my two cents and tell you what a non-golf fan, with very little experience with the Tiger Woods franchise thought.

After an hour or so’s play my first impression was that the game was incredibly hard. For a newbie it certainly has a learning curve. After another hour I was playing like a pro and really enjoyed the experience. It’s something i’ll certainly play, but i’m certainly not good enough to compete online. For that i’ll be sticking to FIFA.

Overall I thought the game was great. The visuals were good and all of the courses looked really cool. I thought the controls were intuitive and, I have to say, Tiger 10 is a fun sports game even for the non-golf fans and a really solid, enjoyable experience.

Popularity: 1% [?]

News

Images