Who said golf was easy?

With this year’s iteration of Tiger Woods we get closer than ever to golfing reality, not only with the forthcoming release of the Playstation Move, but the with the addition of a few game play mechanics, difficulty has also taken a nice spike. Gone are the days of big booming drives, only to be replaced with a more considered approach to your round. So what’s different this year?

First and foremost, we have the new addition of the Focus Meter. The Focus Meter is a finite resource that you can use to power up a tee shot, apply spin, narrow your landing zone, or see the putt preview. I say finite, because everytime you use one of these abilities, your Focus Meter depletes, so use these abilities wisely, there’s nothing worse than having a monster of a putt with no Focus left to help with the putt preview. But all is not lost; hit some solid shots like getting your drive on the fairway or a close approach and your Focus is replenished slightly. Leaving you in a cat and mouse style game of knowing when to use Focus and when to play it straight.

At the beginning the Focus Meter can seem like a bit of a struggle to get used to, and you certainly appreciate just how much you have been relying on the monster drives and spin to help your round in the past. But the longer you play, the more you appreciate how much more fun the game now is. Before it was all down to a drive and a short iron into the green, now however, your drives are much shorter and you really have to consider every shot.

Speaking of careful consideration, the difficulty has not just taken a spike due to the Focus Meter; playing offline now really seems to affect how you end up playing a hole. Whereas in previous incarnations, venturing into the rough didn’t have any serious consequences, now even landing on the fringe of the fairway will force you to go down a few clubs so you have enough length to reach the hole, as a simple 120 yard shot, turns more into an 150 yard one with the rough considered.

Along with the Focus Meter, we now have the addition of True Aim with essentially is a “third person” view of a round of golf. Gone are the landing zones, and pin point accuracy. You have to judge where to hit the ball based entirely on the landscaping of the hole, and carefully listening to the commentator’s flyby briefing. The camera is stuck behind the player at all times, and while you get to see some of the trajectory of the ball, you only know how well you’ve done when you arrive at its final destination. This is a nice addition to the game, for those who want a more realistic platform, and I feel that with the Move implemented, this mode will become a real winner, but as it stands I only played a few holes this way before returning to the standard gameplay.

The career mode has seen a little shake up too, with the addition of XP. XP is awarded for hitting the fairway in regulation, greens in regulation, birdies, long putts etc. This XP can then be spent to either better your golfer’s stats or you can also buy equipment in the Pro Shop to artificially boost skill levels. XP can also be awarded by competing in Skills Challenges, where you take on the pro’s and pit your golf game against theirs. This is pretty much like the previous skill challenge game types in Tiger Woods, and has a good balance of teaching some of the fundamentals of the game, while also awarding the player with some XP. One of the major bonus’s of the XP setup is, you are no longer penalised for playing a bad round, which is fantastic when you are starting out on your journey.

The career itself on the PGA tour is the usual fair; compete in tournaments and majors hoping to win them all. But with this new career and skill level development, coupled with the Focus Meter you’ll be looking to just break par at the very start. Gone are the days of winning championships straight off the bat, you’ll have to be content with developing your golfer for future glory.

The main marketable addition to this year’s release of Tiger Woods, is the inclusion of the Ryder Cup, and while this is a major event in the golfing world. I did find my experience with it a little stale. There was no real drama. Missing were the updates while playing your round, as to how your teammates are doing that you get in a standard tournament. And my usual issue of a partisan and sparse amount of spectators were really evident. Playing EA’s other release, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, we really got a sense of achievement on winning the world cup and the occasion and excitement was depicted brilliantly as your progressed. However, I feel this excitement is missing from the Ryder Cup.

Another annoying factor of the Tiger Woods experience has to be the load times, while not ungodly in their length, they certainly do frustrate. It’s beyond me why they don’t load the next hole while you play your current hole. Perhaps it’s a bit too strenuous on the PS3, but we’ve been dealing with this issue for years, and surely a solution can’t be too far away.

I think the best way to summarise my experiences with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 would be to explain my time spent in St Andrews this very weekend. Not in real life of course, but in the Play the Pro’s mode featured in the online aspect of Tiger Woods. Watching the British Open in St Andrews I scoffed on Friday as the play was halted for an hour due to excessive winds; being an amateur golfer myself I’ve been out in some horrendous weather and laughed at the fact that these over paid prima donnas couldn’t handle a light breeze. So I went home and fired up the Play the Pro’s option with real time weather, St Andrews has always been an easy course in the game, but with the weather as it was, and the addition of the Focus Meter and an unforgiving rough, I limped around to an astounding final score of 17 over par….. perhaps the golfers aren’t nancy boys after all.

Tiger Woods 11 is like the FIFA franchise, if you’re a casual player then buying one every few years is enough. But if you are a seasoned Tiger Woods fan, then the additions to this year’s release certainly warrants a purchase.

9/10

Review by Brian Buckley