[Timgt5]

Tiger Woods, PGA 2010 a Review

Released: July 2009
Developer: EA Sports
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Type: Sports
Genre: Golf, Professional, simulation
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii and PS2
Rating: E

Background: Every summer brings about another installment of the Tiger Woods golf series. This year’s model seems to have brought about some solid improvements. For this review I played the PS3 version.

Highs: Great graphics, Revised TV style presentation, very deep game play, downloadable courses available. Video instruction from Hank Haney

Lows: A few muddled textures here and there, tricky putter interface, requires a lot of patience to advance. Please bring back Gary McCord and David Feherity; I am not a fan of commentator Kelly Tilghman, No Michelle Wie L

The Premise: If you are into pro golf this game is going to be quite a smorgasbord of things to do.

The Game Play: There are a lot of things to do in this game. You can “play now” pick a pro and hit one of the games available courses. There are some you have to unlock in the career mode before you can play. In the Career mode you start by building your golfer. You can do this by either uploading a photo of yourself or picking a game face from the menu. Your golfer can be either male or female. Then you can add the hairstyle, body shape, ethnicity and clothing to your avatar. The interface is easy to use and building a golfer only takes a few minutes. Once you have your golfer, you head over to the tutorial, where you meet swing coach Hank Haney as he walks you through different shots. The tutorial flows fairly quickly and for those who are beginners it is a useful tool. Once the tutorial is done you are assigned a baseline of skills, Driving, Approach, Short Game, and Putting. Those skills improve as you play events and make good shots. From there you are off and running. You can practice with stroke play on any of the beginning courses, compete in challenges to up your skills and participate in tournaments on and offline. One interesting feature added is real tournaments. You can go on your calendar and insert your golfer in actual events that have occurred with your score measured against the pros that actually competed in the tournament. You can also practice with some arcade style games as well including “target golf”. In all you can unlock 18 courses including Bethpage, Saint Andrews, Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass, Bay Hill and others. In addition to the courses available on the disk, in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions you can purchase additional courses online through Xbox live or PSN. The bottom line is there is a whole LOT of content in this game.

The mechanics of the game itself have been honed over the years and are nearly perfect. On the non-Wii versions you use the analog stick to swing back and forward. On the Wii you would use the Wii-mote, like a golf club (EA worked hard to make this interface work well) The putting interface is a bit tricky and takes a bit of practice to fully master.

For additional challenges, you can customize the weather, the green speeds, and the tee placement. You can also play with “real time” weather. Go to an event on the calendar and you can choose to contend with whatever conditions the pros had to deal with that day

Graphics and Sound: Graphically EA has improved this one over its predecessors. One major change is the much more “broadcast style” presentation. In older versions of this game, when you hit the ball, the camera would follow behind the ball in flight. On the PS3/360 versions of the game, the camera pulls back to a distance in front of the ball. This is the way you would see it as if if you watching live golf on TV. The effect is very well done and adds a lot of realism to the game’s appearance. The course environments are nicely detailed and carefully shaped like the real thing. Additions to 2010 include a digital scoreboard that works in real time on some of the holes, larger galleries (crowds) and better textures on the golf balls and close ups of the putting surface. Occasionally there is still some mudding of the some the trees, and the close-ups of the grass in the rough still look “drawn” Both of these problems however, are greatly diminished from 2009. The weather effects such as cloud, winds and rain are handled well and are convincing. The golfer models are pretty much carryovers from last year. A couple of new golfers for this year are rising stars Anthony Kim and Se Ri Pak. The golfers all look good, with some nice mo-cap on their facial expressions. No Michelle Wie though, grrrr (Ok, she is not the greatest player in the world, but those legs…. Oh lord, sorry I digress)

The direct and ambient sounds are also well programmed. The drivers hit with a satisfying “thunk” The irons have that nice “whoosh” and “klink” sound. Wind, rain and ambient animal noises are balanced well. One very cool addition is galleries from other holes in the tournament play. In the middle of your shot, if Tiger is playing behind you, you will hear the roar of the crowd as he pulls off one of his incredible shots. It really adds to the realism of competing in tournaments.

The commentary of Scott Van Pelt and Kelly Tilghman are professional, spot on and frankly, boring. I do not care for Kelly on the golf channel and do not like her here either. Fortunately you have the option to shut them off. Oh mighty EA in your infinite wisdom and extremely deep pockets, please bring back Gary McCord and David Feherity both those guys were truly entertaining to listen to (although both were politically incorrect)

Kids Corner: No trouble here at all. Other than the occasional throwing down of the golf club in anger, there is no violence in golf. All attire is reasonable, and there are no “bad words” spoken here. If you have a kid who is interested in learning about the game of golf and some of the players, this game is a great start.

Once again another year and we have another Tiger Woods golf game. This one I have to say is one of the best in a long time.