Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 Review
Obviously Tiger doesn't need to worry about getting in shape.
The most immediately interesting thing about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is the fact that it incorporates the Wii MotionPlus, an add-on to the existing Wiimote that gives more precise haptic feedback. The promise of the Wiimote orginally was that it would let you really “be” the game, and like many nerds I immediately imagined light-saber duels. In practice, the accelerometer in the Wiimote wasn’t quite that sensitive, and so motion control had a bit of a delay. It was fine for “gamey” controls, where learning the right move to make is part of playing the game well – like knowing all of Ryu’s combos on old-school arcade games. But for a game that tried to be realistic, it didn’t work. So the Wii MotionPlus adds a gyroscope into the mix, which not only give more immediate and fine-grained input, but also means the player isn’t as dependent on the bar at the top of the monitor. It’s a little brick at the bottom of the Wiimote, and a plastic sleeve that keeps it all together, picture here:
Wiimote with Wii MotionPlus, and my hairy mitt.
Golf is a natural implementation of this new gadget, and Tiger Woods does it really well. I’m not an expert golfer, but I did go to a summer golf camp one year in high school, and used to play fairly regularly when I was in the Army. In fact, I can say that I’ve been banned-for-life from most of the courses I’ve ever played on, but that was because the Scout Platoon Annual Golf Outing was one of the more severe man-made disasters ever to occur with regularity. I’m nominally a lefty, though I do nearly everything better with my right than I do with my left. I know, that means I’m a righty, right? But in my head, my left feels more dominant, and it’s the hand I write, throw and … yeah, write and throw best with. Otherwise, I’m either completely ambidextrous, or even right-hand dominant. So golf has alway been a bit of a muddle for me. Since I don’t own my own clubs, I always have to rent or borrow, and can almost never get left-handed clubs. As a result I have zero muscle memory of the correct swing. The Wii MotionPlus picks this up with alacrity. In fact, my golf stroke sure looks like I’m swinging a baseball bat.
Tiger Woods is a benevolent golf-god, however, and has built a number of functions into the game that compensate for my lack of actual prowess. There’s the “all-club” mode, which basically selects your club, then lets you pick where you want the ball to land using a big glowing circle. Then all you’ve got to do is give it an even, smooth stroke and Bob’s yer uncle. As it happens, my uncle’s name is Rob, not Bob, so you see, I have a bit of difficulty – demonstrated here in this video:
After a few rounds, though, I’ve gotten the hang of it. Enough to equip my golfer with some pretty swanky duds – check out my kilt and pirate-hat!
Those socks are sexy, no? Ladies, please form an orderly queue to the left.
Using the cheaty mode, I’ve even managed to get a hole-in-one from time to time, which feels way more awesome than it really is. See, the virtual announcers don’t realize there’s a gigantic glowing circle out on the course for me to aim for. This is good, because the virtual announcers may celebrate my accomplishments, but they also scold my failures in that quiet voice that means either golf, or NPR. If they DID know I was cheating, I’m sure there criticism would be even more pointed. “Hmm, that’s a disappointing shot, considering there was a huge glowing target to aim for. He’s picked a fine week to quit sniffing glue!”
Here’s my try at a hole-in-one. I didn’t sink it, but my virtually kilt-clad self (with awesome porno-moustache!) does do a highly amusing sack-dance after putting it nicely on the green.
There’s tons of options – you can quick play a round, manage a career and play at lots of different courses on the PGA tour, buy new clubs, clothes, and other doodads. In fact, apparently golf is a shopper’s delight – the variety of brands, clubs, and clothes is dizzying. But it’s all about getting you onto the course, and schwacking away, and that’s what it does well. Any faults you may have in your real golf game will be replicated virtually. But if you really blast one down the fairway, it sounds like a cannon and goes in all Matrixy bullet-time slow motion, which again, is way more awesome than real life. No sunburn or aching feet, either! On the other hand, no celebratory beers at the… hmm, well, maybe celebratory beers are entirely possible after all.
Does this kilt make my butt look big?
The real question for me is, how good a workout is it? Real golf is a pretty gentle day’s exercise – walking and lugging stuff if you do it the hard way, but more likely you’re on a golf-cart and not carrying your clubs. (Hint: do not try golf-cart jousting, or to get your cart into a hull-down defilade position in a sand trap. This is from personal experience, folks.) Virtual golf is even easier. You’re standing up instead of sitting down, and you really do have to give it a solid swing if you want to put the ball anywhere down the fairway. But there’s no club-weight, and basically you’re just standing there swinging your arms around. So, an hour of Tiger Woods is better than an hour of World of Warcraft (Hey, Proudmoore server, look for Camlost or Tinooviel!) but it’s still not going to make you break a sweat or get your heart pumping. For my purposes – which is to say; actually losing weight and getting back into shape, it’s not really going to cut the mustard. (What the heck does that expression mean, anyway?) Maybe after a more vigorous workout, I can “cool down” with a few holes of golf, but as a form of exercise it really doesn’t suffice.
For fun, I give it a 4 out of 5. For novelty, it scores a full 5 points with the addition of the Wii MotionPlus, but for fitness, a paltry 1 out of 5.
