Nintendo Okie

Wii Motion Plus hit stores last year with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. That was the first retail game to take advantage of Nintendo’s newest peripheral and it ushered in a new era of motion controlled golf that began to feel more and more like actually hitting the links. Fast forward a year, add some new innovations and you get Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. The question is, “Is this game worth upgrading to?”

New Modes

There was already a lot of content in PGA Tour 11, but EA has found a way to build upon that already extensive amount of content. They’ve added one new feature, which is pretty huge. The Ryder Cup allows you to play through the multi-country event as either the United States or Europe. You can customize the teams, the lineups for the different events and even set the rules so that you can switch between different matches in progress to help someone who’s struggling a bit. The other family fun mode is mini-golf. You can choose to play 9 our 18 holes on up to four unique courses, each with their own special challenges.

If you’re more into the regular PGA tour season you still have the option to create a new golfer and play through a career from the amateur ranks up to becoming the greatest golfer in the world. One new aspect to this mode is the RPG elements that allow you to customize your character as you go. You earn Experience Points while playing through rounds of golf and the Skills Challenges that can be used to upgrade one of four different aspects of your custom golfer. It’s quite pleasing to see the many different ways you can earn experience. The better you play, the more experience you’ll earn. Spend too much time in hazards and you’ll lose experience. There are also instant challenges that will periodically appear that will net you additional cash to use to customize your character. No longer are your attributes tied to the clothes you wear so you’re free to wear what you want while you gain experience.

It’s All Online

EA Sports has always made it easy to get online. No need for friend codes. Your EA account works across all EA games. It’s also extremely easy to add friends to your friend list. Just type in their unique name and they’re instantly available to play against. If you want you can have the game automatically sign in every time you boot up the game to receive the bonus challenges mentioned above.

All of the modes, with the exception of mini-golf are available to play online. You can have up to four people playing together, simultaneously. As you play you’ll see how your opponents do by way of colored lines that show their location and where they hit the ball. It makes for very quick play, without the need to sit around waiting for everyone to take their shots. The one addition that would make this feature absolutely great would be the addition of voice chat. You’re still relegated to preset phrases that you can string together, but it would make the atmosphere that much more realistic to be able to taunt and trash talk your opponents.

New Ways to Play

Tiger Woods on the Wii has been about getting the most realistic golf experience possible. Even last year, despite being so good, felt like you were just swinging the club to initiate your characters animations. The folks at EA Tiburon have implemented two new features that bring even more realism to the game. The first is True View. This is a first person view that allows you to see exactly how you are addressing the ball and once you’ve made contact it will show you the path of the ball from your perspective. This means you won’t always know where your ball is going until it’s time for your next shot. I use this mode almost exclusively now as it really gives you a great sense of being out on a golf course. The other is the Tour Pro difficulty setting. This new level of difficulty, utilizing Motion Plus, takes into account not only the facing of your club head, but also how straight your swing is and how solidly you make contact. If you pull your swing in too much you’ll hit the ball off the edge of the club and shank it off into the bushes or trees. You even have the ability to miss the ball if your swing isn’t perfect.

In addition to this there are a large number of settings that can be tweaked to add other layers of authenticity. Turn on yardage markers and you lose the target area showing where your ball will land. You’ll need to know exactly how each of your clubs perform and be able to estimate ranges. There is something for everyone from this near professional level all the way down to the All-Play feature that will tell you exactly where your ball will land.

There’s Something For Everyone

Turn this game on and you’re almost guaranteed to find something you love. Golf fans will love the depth and realism provided by the Tour schedule. Kids will enjoy being able to play golf with their parents by utilizing the All-Play Mode. Mini-golf is sure to get people who don’t normally play golf games. It brings the fun and zaniness of the traditional date night activity to your living room.

Disc Golf Doesn’t Feel Right

What I mean by that is that it doesn’t feel like disc golf. The mechanics themselves work great. It’s everything, mechanically, I would want from a disc golf game. The disc fly accurately, the throwing motion is solid, but the courses don’t feel right. Sure it’s awesome to play disc golf at St. Andrews or TPC Sawgrass, but I play disc golf. I want to be standing in a tee box staring at a clump of trees that you have to throw the disc around. I want to have to toss discs over city water run off areas and through swingsets on a park. You know, all the things you have to do when you’re really playing disc golf.

Conclusion

Do you like golf? Do you like having parties and finding out who can bounce a ball on a golf club the most times in a row? Do you want to play mini-golf, but it’s raining outside? All of those are reasons that you need to walk, don’t run to pick up Tiger Woods. The realism is better than it’s ever been. The extensive career mode will have you playing for a long time. The RPG elements of the game get you to plan exactly how you want to tackle your career. Yearly franchises are hard to justify coming back to every year. Most of the time the improvements are minute and don’t change things much, but EA Tiburon has added so much new stuff to the game that’s it hard not to recommend this game to anyone that’s interested in hitting the links.  To answer my question above, “Yes, it’s absolutely worth it!”

Final Score: 5/5 Above Average

Played through 5 individual rounds of golf, disc golf, 10 mini-golf games. Played through the first year of the PGA Tour career and about half a dozen matches online.
Total Play Time: 17 hours
Review Copy of the game provided by EA Sports.