Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 Review

Tiger Woods has had a better career than most athletes in all of sports. With a range of games dating back to 1998, his golf video game franchise reaches back farther than most sports games as well. After all this time, many improvements and tweaks have been made. Some of them have been good and some of them have been bad. With this year’s installment, EA Sports may have found the best mix yet.

PGA Tour 11 improves upon last year’s game in a few ways. Although it plays very much the same way as previous versions, the spin and power-shot additions to your swing now come with a price. The new focus system allows you to use power shots and spins to your heart’s desire, but each time you hit the button, a little bit of your focus drains away. Before you know it you don’t have any left for a while. Luckily, if you hit a nice shot without any help from the focus-draining assists, you’ll gain some back for those tricky green shots using putt preview.

True Aim is a new feature to the Tiger Woods franchise that delivers an entirely new, authentic way to swing a golf club with an analog stick. Rather than following the ball around the course in an invisible golf ball tracking mini-copter, you stay on the ground from a third person perspective, much like viewing the sport on television. This option can be turned off and on at will. It is available both on and offline. You are still allowed to zoom out, but not allowed to really set up your shot while doing so. Carry yardage markers litter the field to show you the best shots to try for, but that’s the extent of it.

Several improvements have been made to the core features from previous editions: putting trails, new pin placements, and more realistic backswings. The new power degradation feature forces you to time your swing correctly, resulting in less than prime results if you hold the club at the top of the swing for too long. One of the only features that bothers me is having to wait for other golfers to swing in both the new Ryder Cup mode and in online modes. I understand that it adds a layer of realism to the game, but at a certain point it gets too much like TV. Gamers are an impatient people. We don’t want to wait for the other player to make their shot. Perhaps in the future, online play and Ryder Cup can be simultaneous rather than sequential, as this will speed up the process and make the game less tedious and more like a video game.

The Ryder Cup, a new golf mode that can be accessed either as part of career or single player, is a cool gimmick for marketing, but fails to be the big draw to both new and old fans. There are several game modes that make up the Ryder Cup: a contest for pride between USA and Europe. Some of them take away from the realistic factor they were going for. Besides stroke play (which is what golf is at its core), there are about five other game modes, including a “highest score wins” type, which makes no sense to me, but then again I only play golf about once a month in the real world.

When online there are options to play regular golf matches and team matches that allow you to play and see the arcs from the other team’s shots. Another advantage of the online are the “skills challenges”, that post other players’ shots and give you XP for getting close or beating their shots. The main downside to the online play is that EA has introduced their “Online Pass”, which forces users to buy the game brand new or risk having to pay extra for the ability to play online. As far as functionality goes, however, all of the features work very well and make for a pretty fun experience.

One of the biggest draws of the Tiger Woods franchise since the early days is the golfer creation. EA utilizes their deep creation engine also used in Fight Night Round 4. You can be as realistic as you want or create a character that makes you crack up every time you see it. You can use these golfers in a pretty lengthy career mode, take them online or even use them in the Ryder Cup challenge.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 looks and sounds phenomenal, but after being the best looking sports game year in and year out, this doesn’t really come as a shock. The crowd’s oohs and ahhs, the gentle golf clap, the distinct sound of a certain club head striking a ball; EA never fails at making the player feel like they’re standing right in the middle of one of the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments. The announcers are only slightly annoying, which is a major plus, considering the announcers with other sports titles get repetitive and boring rather quickly.

Overall, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is a great sports title. You can gripe about the complexities of some features and complain about the over-simplicity of others, but when you actually play, it’s a very satisfying and addictive experience. Leveling up your golfer gives the player a sense of immersion rivaled by a deep role-playing game. Smacking a few 375 yarders with Tiger himself never ceases to make the player feel all-powerful.

Whether you’re a die-hard golf fanatic or just wanting to move your thumbsticks and hit something more than just the back of your opponents’ head, you can’t go wrong with the newest golf offering from EA Sports. My one request: EA, we all know you make loads of money from this franchise, so please take some of that and pay whatever it takes to bring The Masters to the video game world. Getting tickets to the event is nearly impossible, so being able to play the tournament any time of the year would secure the Tiger Woods franchise as top dog in the sporting game world for years to come.