Rated: 3+.
Gameplay: Golf. Absolutely loads and loads of golf. Honestly, imagine any type of competition or mini-game you can think of involving hitting a small white ball with a club - if it doesn't involve killer whales, it's here.
The game is played by selecting the club you want to use, the type of shot you want to hit and taking aim with the d-pad. After that, it's a case of swinging the wiimote like an actual golf club. Speed and accuracy affect where the ball ends up and it's possible to curve the trajectory by altering your grip on the wiimote. When putting, a grid of moving arrows shows the undulation of the greens to help you aim your shot.
Various different options are available to alter the complexity and difficulty. On the easiest settings, the controls are simplified and the game shows you where your ball is going to go. On the hardest settings, shot and club selection become an arcane science and a mis-hit leads to disaster.
The game is compatible with the Wii MotionPlus add-on which tracks position of the wiimote as well as direction and speed. In theory, this should add extra realism.
The single-player career mode involves a full calendar of PGA events. Multiplayer options include normal golf for 2-4 players and a party mode of golf mini-games. There's also online multiplayer. On top of that, there's crazy golf, 2-player Capture the Flag, target practice and even Frisbee golf.
Save System: Stupid. Some of the modes don't allow the game to be saved at all, so if the phone goes halfway through your eighteen holes, then you're stuck. Others can be saved at any point but it's impossible to have more than one round in progress at a time. If you've saved the game in the middle of a one-player career round, there doesn't seem to be any way of starting a multiplayer game without finishing off the one-player game or wiping it. There doesn't even seem to be a way for two different people to have separate one-player rounds on the go.
This is madness.
As far as I can see, the only method of overcoming this problem is for each member of the household to have their own SD memory card to store their saved game on and to copy it to and from the Wii at the beginning and end of their play session. This isn't convenient and it has huge potential for catastrophe. Not exactly ideal.
Comments: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is one of the first games designed to work with the Wii MotionPlus unit but I still don't have one. Happily, however, unlike Grand Slam Tennis, it's still a great game without it. The control options allow everything from fun pitch-and-putt for casual players to a marathon career challenge for hardened golfers.
With so many previous games in the series, there's a vast accumulation of modes and features, making it huge value for newcomers. The only downside is that the controls don't always feel as accurate as they should be - it's very easy to massively over-hit putts on harder settings and the Frisbee mode is prone to all kinds of spasms. It's as if the series has gone as far as it can without a more accurate wiimote...
Oh, hang on...
Conclusion: If the idea of playing golf in your living room excites you at all, then go out and buy this. The only thing likely to be better than Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 with the addition of MotionPlus.
Graphics: Less than you might hope for from the Wii but better than you've probably grown to expect. The courses are perfectly presentable and the create-a-golfer options are staggeringly comprehensive.
Length: Will last you until well after Tiger Woods 2011 comes out.
Rating: 4/5 without Wii MotionPlus (although the save system will drive you to distraction if you plan to share the game with anyone else).
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