Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 Review

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010

-Developer(s): EA Tiburon, EA Mobile, HB Studios (PSP, PS2)

-Publisher(s): EA Sports

-Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS 3. Altered versions made for the PS2, Wii, iPhone OS, and PSP. (Reviewed on Xbox 360).

-Genre: Sports (Golf)

-ESRB: E (Everyone)

Review

The core gameplay and mechanics of the Tiger Woods franchise really hasn’t changed much since well….ever. In all fairness there are only so many ways you can actually improve on the concept as it came out strong as the only real golf simulator out there. EA is trying however! Some things that have happened in the last few years include the throwing out of the power boost for shots, loss of your caddy and the ability to tune your clubs to fit your swing type.

Tiger Woods 10 maintains a relatively high level of realism, rewarding planning and patience just like real golf. And just like real golf rushing your shots will usually result in disaster. Driving, fairway shots, and even approach shots are all fairly easy. Putting is the real challenge (as it has been through all Tiger Woods games).This becomes blatantly apparent after missing 3 putts in a row and finishing the hole 3 over.

Speaking of putting, you now have “precision putting” which adds a power of putt meter in the corner of the screen, it helps you determine how much power you require by telling you how much power you would need if the green was in perfect condition. As such you have to factor in whether and hole elevation. It is a noticeable improvement as the old system did involve a certain degree of guessing as to the power behind your putt. Once before every put you can do a preview shot, which will show you your balls path, basically the putting system has been made generally easier. If you prefer the old putting system you can go into options and put classic putting on.

Weather is a huge factor in golf, it is no different in this game, the wind will kill a ball and the rain will cause fairways and greens to stop a rolling ball dead in its tracks. But EA added a new feature called “Live Weather”. What live weather does is it tracks the whether at course locations and emulates those conditions on the course, so if it is raining and windy at pebble beach and you play at pebble beach you will see rain and wind. This feature can be turned on or off (although not in the middle of PGA Tour Events). It is a quirky feature forcing you to take real world weather patterns into account.

A MAJOR improvement in the game this year is the fact that there are now 4 different difficulty levels! This allows you to actually scale the game’s difficulty to your skill, something sorely lacking in past games. The golfers you face are no more difficult, nor are the courses. But the game is far less forgiving of mistakes. You will lose things such as putt preview and the ability to spin the ball post shot as you go up in difficulty. This lack of difficulty setting was always one of my sore spots as the game had a steep learning curve, but once mastered became rather boring and playing seemed more like a chore then entertainment.

When you first put the game in you are required to make a golfer. The hair styles like past games are generally humorous, with a few “normal” cuts. Beyond that gender, race, specific facial features and build are all customizable. After creating your character you take a sort of competence test which tests your four skills driving, accuracy, short game, and putting.

Your score on these tests determines your starting attributes. Now if you’ve been away from the series for a while you are probably going to be either horrified or ecstatic that you no longer buy your attributes but earn them based on your play. Beyond that your attributes will rise and fall based on round performance and how well you do in post-round practice sessions. These practice sessions are under your coach’s (Hank Haney) guidance and you gain attributes for completing his skill testing challenges. These challenges consist of hitting the ball into a variety of increasingly smaller circles.

As always you can still buy articles of clothing and golf club sets to boost your attributes (how a watch makes you a better putter is beyond me). As in past games the price of such equipment is rather low, so after winning only 1 or 2 large torments you are essentially set for life. That being said you have to achieve certain career milestones and goals before you are actually allowed to buy most of the equipment.

Your golfer has no shortage of game modes to play as there are plenty. Your main money maker will be playing on the PGA Tour which is sadly capped at 5 years of Tour play, which seems like nothing more then the game developers attempting to force you to go online.

Other then the PGA Tour you can still play with your friends (or by yourself) in classic game modes such as skins game or match play. Slightly more abstract games such as “Bingo Bango Bongo” (a particular favorite of mine) or “Target to Target” add some variety to the game. Sadly in essence these games are all virtually the same. I do not blame EA, there is only so much you can do with golf. There are over a 20 game modes to choose from, and although many are virtually the same there are a few gems.

Possibly the greatest improvement in the game is the online multiplayer. Now you can play a variety of online tournaments at a variety of skill levels. Warning! The top golfers online are extremely good, 30 under (or better) rounds are the usual for the best players. This means that the it can seem daunting to newer players and can turn them off of the game as the best players are so much better that there is virtually no way to win (or even place in the top 20-50) unless you want to put in many hours of gameplay.

There are however many positive things to say about online play. You can play many of your favourite game modes such as skins and stroke play online with your buddies. And the best part, you no longer have to wait for everyone to take a shot, you now simply take your shots one after the other until done the hole. The advantages are easy to see, how wants to watch 3 other people play (especially when they are doing rather poorly), it does however take away from the social aspect of the game, you feel less like you are playing with your friends and more like you are playing against their scores.

Another new feature to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is the “Play the Pro’s” game mode where you play against actual professional golfer scores from real tournaments that were played that week. Again real pro scores are completely destroyed by many of the best players.

As solid as the online play is in my opinion the most underrated part of the Tiger Woods franchise is the local multiplayer component. I have had much fun with friends just jumping into a friendly game of golf. And although it is rough going for a while, after a few games your friends generally get to the point where they can hit par. This game can be a party game so long as everyone some experience with the game. This game is adult friendly in that you don’t have to have lightning fast reflexes, in fact a calm demeanour is the most effect way to go about the game. I would recommend this game for families as it is a game that everyone regardless of age can enjoy, and if accompanied with a sense of humour can be a great way to have a fun time with everyone in the family.

I have always seen the Tiger Woods franchise as an above average game when it comes to presentation . It is nice to see that so much work was done to make sure that golfers and their skills are portrayed accurately. The developers also added some fictitious golfers such as “Happy Gilmore” (from the movie I hope everyone has seen). Well usually statistically unimpressive it is a nice touch and shows a sense of humor, which is sorely lacking at EA. Tiger Woods of course is overall the best golfer in the game, no doubt about it. After using my decent but underpowered golfer I often underestimated Tiger’s power to get to the green in 2 shots on a par 5.

The courses you play on also look fairly good. No major improvement but they are fairly accurate and do convey some feel that you are actually in your golfers shoes looking out at the Ocean or at the Rocky Mountains. The two most impressive courses in my opinion are downloadable content (“Banff” and “The Predator“). The only problem is that they cost 800 MS points each. Sadly I do not think they are worth $13-$15. It would be preferable for EA to have packaged two or three downloadable courses together as an 800 (or even 1200) point bundle instead. But if you have some MS points that are lying around and don’t like arcade games then feel free to spend them on those courses.

Banff Looks Great, but is it worth 800 MS Points?

And just like all recent EA sports games there is a sports news feed at the bottom of the screen that pops up with various scores from different sports. Although not entirely useful for the game it does provide accurate and up to date information about the days sports action (although it is heavily Americanized).

For those who haven’t played a Tiger Woods game in a few years, yes the spectators are now 3D and there are more then 5 outfits (actually there still are but an abundance of colors creates the illusion of many outfits). And unlike so many sports games, they bothered to put child fans in! On the tee box you see officials holding up signs quieting the crowd. The best part of fans is that they react to the ball like a human being. They duck and cover if the balls is heading towards them, and should it hit them they grab that body part and jump around comically. And like in the past they will react to your shots (as will your golfer). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8D98azheVU

The only real issue with the fans is they clap in unison. Come on EA it takes little to no effort to put some love in and just create 3-4 different clapping speeds. Or at least have them start clapping at different times, anything.

Contrary to what many seem to think I personally have never seen Tiger Woods as a graphically strong franchise. To me the characters and environments were at best average or just barely above average for a sports game considering that they only had one golfer on the screen at any one time, so much more could have been done but wasn’t. This has changed in the last few installments of the franchise. The golfers are highly detailed and expressive and the fauna looks much better then games past. The one thing I was hoping was that there would be a better sense of depth and texture, although far from crippling it does take away from the look of the game.

And we must move onto audio. Sound may very well be Tiger Woods 2010’s weakest component. The games sound’s really hasn’t changed much since its inception but it has continually been refined. As someone who actually plays golf I find that the contact sounds are very good, although not perfect as there is a slight issue with lack of variety. The sound of the environment although not stunning is sufficient. That being said I would like the environmental sounds to have more of an immersive feeling to them, more birds, etc.

Of course that is a minor issue when compared to the commentary. With Scott Van Pelt of ESPN and Kelly Tilghman of the Golf Channel as commentators you would assume that the commentary would be at least ok. Then of course you realize that this is EA and they will find a way to make you hate another set of good commentators. Beyond the usual inaccurate commentary of shots, generally poor writing and complete lack of solid jokes EA managed to step up (step down?) to the plate and make yet another mistake. Normally in a sports game the two commentators sometimes get behind in the play, that is annoying enough. Now in this game virtually every shot is “predicted” by the one of the commentators. When wrong the other commentator corrects their counterpart, good idea just like real life….expect that half of the predictions tend to fail, this means you constantly have them correcting each other, and yes it gets rather annoying. Beyond that you get ripped apart for things such as missing a 50 foot putt by just inches. I would like to thank the guy at EA who made sure the “turn off commentary” option was available, you sir are my hero.

Thankfully the music is good, although not quite appropriate for golf (then again what is). You have your Hip Hoppers and your Rockers, and some hard rock/light metal thrown in for good measure.

Sadly all the praise I have given this game may be for not. Although a very good game it still feels much like games past and one has to ask themselves if it is really worth the extra $70 to buy this new title. In my personal opinion you would be best to buy last years game (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09) at $30 unless you plan on a lot of online play, in which case you basically have to move with the herd and purchase the new game. For those with 08 I would recommend you wait until next year before buying another title.

Score

Gameplay: 85%

The game maintains its high quality of play as well as adding a few new features. New putting engine is a godsend for new players to the series, or those who have just had troubling with putting in the past. Single player remains largely the same although levelling up has changed since the good old days. Magic golf-boosting clothing still a staple. Improved Multiplayer tournaments add to what was very light online play. Local multiplayer remains good and suits a small party/family atmosphere.

Presentation: 80%

The game's menus are easy to navigate and there are well placed shortcuts. Both the courses and golfers are fairly accurate. The game makes it fairly easy to find what you need and the attention to detail is good (not great).

Graphics: 85%

Strong player characters, fans are well done. Courses are beautiful although the trees and fauna could use some work. Downloadable courses are especially good but hardly warrant the 800 point each price tag. Overall above average graphics with especially good player models and fans.

Sound: 70%

Good environment and gameplay sound. Good music selection, although not entirely appropriate for golf (which may be a good thing). Commentary is repetitive, annoying, and often inaccurate and hurts the audio component of the game considerably. So basically what you expect from an EA sports game.

Value: 60%

The game simply feels too much like games past to warrant dropping another $70. Go out and buy 09 instead, or keep your copy of 08. If you play extensively online then you are obligated to buy the new title so your hands are tied.

Overall: 80%

A good experience with noticeable improvements, such as precision putting and improved graphics. Online play is much improved. That being said it may not be worth dropping $70 at EB games to upgrade from 09 unless you plan on playing online.