Hi everyone, I’m Jay Shenkman Senior Producer for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii. Wow! What a difference a year makes. I just finished up 18 holes on Bethpage (Black) and I can honestly say I LOVE playing this game! I’m using the new Wii MotionPlus which, of course, if you haven’t already heard is fully integrated into Tiger Wii this year. This is the closest we’ve come to delivering a true golf experience and it shows in the intense competitions we’re having around here. Each round is a unique experience and that’s not easy to say when you play this game as much as I do. Very soon you’ll get to see what I’m talking about for yourselves but before that, let me clue you in on a few of the things the Wii MotionPlus accessory adds to the game.
The first thing you’ll notice is the 1:1 swing. You’ll know you’re not in Kansas anymore the minute you pop the Wii MotionPlus onto the bottom of your Wii Remote and start to move. The 1:1 backswing is near perfect and it feels great. To give you even more of a feeling of control we’ve added a 1:1 forward swing. The combination of these two things ensures that your golfer moves the same way you do from start to finish. This is true even if you don’t follow all the way through. So what does that get me you ask? Well, how about no more miss hits for one thing. Gone are the days where a slight jitter of the Wii Remote might be interpreted as a swing. That alone could add a few strokes back on to your score. It also gets you the ability to hit low power shots. I can now hit a 1% shot off the tee if I want to and watch the ball slowly roll for a measly few yards. Unfortunately I do that regularly on a real golf course but I assure you it would have to be by choice in Tiger Wii. Now I doubt you’ll ever want to do that off the tee but this comes in real handy when you’re off in the mulch somewhere and just want to punch out onto the fairway. If you have the right club (gotta watch the loft!) you may no longer need to change your shot type to “Punch”. Keeping it on “Full” and taking a low power shot will get the job done. It also means you have much more control than in the past, giving you a better chance at hitting 20 or 30% shots, so you no longer need to change club so often.
Next is Draw/Fade. This is one of my favorite new things to do with the MotionPlus and I use it all the time. Draw/Fade is now nearly 100% consistent. The mechanic is the same as past titles in that we simulate draw/fade by the rotation of the Wii Remote on your follow through. But you have much more control now. Thanks to the Wii MotionPlus we can now read very accurately how you’re rotated in 3D space when you swing through the ball. A slight rotation will result in a slight draw or fade as will a more extreme rotation end up in a greater draw or fade. It is fantastically consistent and once you get the hang of it you’ll have no need to avoid those doglegs anymore. This new system is also what makes the game challenging. As I’m sure you’ve pieced together by now from my comments that if you are not straight when going through the ball you may not hit it straight. While it’s not hard to hit the ball on a good line this does increase the need to concentrate when swinging just as you would in real life.
And last but certainly not least is the massive improvement to putting. The putting in this game is hands down the closest to real life putting that you’ve seen in a video game. The basic premise is identical to real life. The distance your ball will travel is based on a combination of backswing length and the tempo of your downswing. If you hit the ball too soft it will not travel far. If you hit it hard it will travel further. You do this with a single long range putter. We call this “Precision Putting” and it will change the way you play this game. We’ve even added the ability to push or pull a ball when putting by reading the rotation the Wii Remote on your downswing. Of course we realize that there are many of you out there that may prefer the multiple putter system that was in last year’s game. This is now called “Classic Putting” and is an option that is available to you should you choose to use it. You can switch putting styles at any time in the game.
I’ll also take a minute to mention that the Wii MotionPlus controls will blow you away when using it with our new Disc Golf feature. It allows you to pick up a disc from off the ground and throw it in almost any way that you could in real life. No restrictions. When you pick up the disc and start rotating your wrists you will see your motion replicated the exact same way on screen. It’s really quite incredible and it’s something that could not be achieved in such a precise manner without the Wii MotionPlus. That said the game can be played and is very enjoyable without it as well.
So now that I’ve told you how great the controls are with the Wii MotionPlus, I’m going to try to anticipate some of your questions. Does all of this make the game hard and can I play without the Wii MotionPlus? Let me address this. It’s not too hard at all. The game is customizable to the nth degree. You can choose from “All-Play”, Standard or Advanced swing style. Each one being more challenging than the next. You can choose from 2 putting styles that offer different mechanics (Classic /Precision) and you can choose to play with or without the Wii MotionPlus. There is no advantage to using any of these or to playing without the Wii MotionPlus. Well, maybe there is an advantage to using All-Play. Each style presents its own challenges and the difficulty of each will be determined by how you, the user, adjusts to using it. We also allow you to turn visual aids such as putt preview and the putt meter off. You will need to find the style that suits you best. Personally I like to play on advanced swing with the Wii MotionPlus. This means the putt preview line is turned off and then I manually turn off the putt meter so I have no visual aid other than the putting grid on the ground and a recommended power %. As a matter of fact I don’t even look at the screen when I putt because I have mastered the proper backswing and tempo to get the power that I need. It’s just me against the green and it feels very real to me.
So with all this we’re really excited for you to get your hands on the game so you can experience what we’ve been enjoying for several months now. This is also just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what’s new in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10. You can be sure we’ll keep you posted with more feature blogs and press releases until the game comes out. In the meantime, I’m headed back in game for another 18 holes. This time I think I’ll try my luck on TPC Sawgrass.
See you on the links in a few months!
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