Tiger Woods 2011 – Review by Philip1979

Philip1979 on Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:50 pm

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Firstly may I add this is my first ever review of an Xbox game so please be gentle on your comments.

Hope you enjoy the review…

It’s the summer time and it should be the time off the year where most gold fanatics are out playing their local course but being in the UK we don’t get the weather and due to working we don’t get the time! So why not take your golfing game onto the best franchised game that is Tiger Woods; EA sports are the developers of this highly successful game that I have been playing since the old Playstation 2 and have loved them all.

This years edition has been highly anticipated by myself and with every edition there is always something added to tweak the interest for newcomers well this season the newest addition is the introduction of the “Ryder Cup” mode; this mode competes the best golfers from Europe against the best golfers from the United States.

Along with the Ryder Cup mode there has been a few tweaks as how you play the game with the introduction of “True-Aim”; this is basically providing you with an first person view of your ball flight just as you would see the ball in flight after you have taken the shot; this does now remove your ability to fade/draw or spin the ball to your requirements as you would see it in normal mode. To help you select your club and work out the distances you have a GPS tracker that highlights certain distances etc. I haven’t played much with this mode but it does seem good and certainly is tricky!

With the last few games you had the ability to hit monster drives and spin the ball back as far as you could get my repeatedly pressing A to generate power and spin well guess what…you can’t anymore! This power/spin has been given a new terminology of “Focus”; once you start a round you are given full focus and if you want power or spin your focus is reduced by how much you use it; it is regained by hitting fairways etc but not at a great pace and this isn’t the worse part…remember how you pressed LB for a projected line of your putt….well you can but it uses LOADS of focus! This element is brilliant as now you have to determine and how you are going to use your focus during your game! Nice addition and will really effect how you play the game from now on.

The game itself still looks fantastic and they have improved the graphics to boot; there is nothing better than standing on the course and seeing the fluttering of your trousers/shirt from the nice breeze, the grass and trees swaying with the stronger winds on the woodland course and when trying to play St Andrews and the gales and rain in your face just isn’t fun in real life but at least we can see what its like on the Xbox!

With plenty of courses included with the game you will never get bored and if you do there are course that you can purchase with Microsoft points on the marketplace; I was lucky enough to pre-order from GAME where I got a code for the Riviera Country Club for free.

In other games you would win money for events etc that you can then buy clubs/clothing items from the Pro Shop; with 2011 this is now XP; you earn XP the same way buy winning competitions and doing the Skills Challenges that will test your gaming to the max; 48 challenges and a nice way of helping you learn the ropes of the game to boot!

You can play all different golfing game types like stroke play, skins, four ball etc along with mini games that are fun and help you skill level increase.

Along with this the multiplayer has been adapted to suit the Ryder Cup with 12 vs 12 online play mode can be created to see who wins the bragging rights; you can also just play against a friend or a random but with our friends in the US they have better skill rating as they have had the game since early June.

Also you can post and play against challenges set by other users; these are called GamerNet challengers; they can range from a hole in one on a long par 3 or even a 500 yard drive on a par 5 hole; if you think its tough then post it and let others deicide!

Customisation of you character is endless due to the amount of items in the Pro Shop; you have the pick of the main manufactures of golfing clothing and club makers; if you want your golfer to have a green Mohican, wearing a polo-shirt with a kilt and wellie boots well guess what you CAN!

Just to warn you EA have no introduced a code that comes with all new copies of Tiger Woods this enables you to have access to the internet so you can play endlessly if you are buying this second hand you may have to pay for this access; so please be wary!

My conclusion for this game is that its brilliant I’m a big fan of golf and to me these games get better and better; my only downside is that the achievements are way to easy compared to past editions; the skills challenges are indeed tricky and they will test your abilities from tee to green but if you play golf in real life you will have your own ideas on how to play the shots which I think is great.

Most the achievements can be done quite easily if you set up a game to the parameters that are required for hitting a long drive or hitting a certain green in one shot etc. So if your new to the gaming series getting Gamerscore can be easy but like me if you've played a lot of the Tiger Woods games you may feel that this edition has been greatly reduced to suit new players which in my opinion is wrong.

A few online achievements are needed to complete your Gamerscore and at the mo lots of people are online so they should not be a problem at all. The game is certainly easier that previous editions but after owning the game for 11 days I have it completed with 1000g and feel that i will not hold onto it and trade it in as many other Tiger Woods fans will due to the simple Gamerscore.

Overall i would give this game 8/10; it would be higher but I’ll not go on again about how easy and how little effort was needed to max this game out.

If you do get the game after reading this then I hope you enjoy the game and lets hope you get a few holes in one!

Many thanks for reading.