I was a little annoyed that I was forced to watch each and every shot from both my partner and the Europeans, but at least you can tap A (or X on PS3) once they make contact with the ball. All that said, when you're actually playing the Ryder Cup, it's pretty damn fun. A video played of past real world Ryder Cup wins, but the feeling of landing an enormous victory was absent. Tiger drained the putt to clinch the victory and send the Euros packing, but Van Pelt just said, "Drains it for a birdie" with no mention of the fact that I had just made the biggest putt in U.S. In other words, the putt that my golfer (Tiger Woods, of course) was staring at dead in the eyes would decide the fate of the entire team. Europe and USA were knotted in the overall score and the matches for the final stage were all square. There I sat, on the green of the 18th hole of the final stage of the Ryder Cup. Kelly Tillman and Scott Van Pelt do a good job in the commentary with things like weather changes, but with meaningful shots they really phone in their performances. The idea of playing as the USA as they take on Europe is great and should be extraordinarily exhilarating (by golf's standards). I'm not saying that the Ryder Cup is a poor addition to the Tiger Woods formula, but it certainly could have been differentiated a bit more from the rest of the modes. Ryder Cup is another big addition to this year's Tiger Woods. None of the bugs I just mentioned are game-ending, but I think they're worth noting before you take the plunge. The camera can't negotiate it and I was caught looking at the back of people's legs on a few occasions. There's also an issue when your ball lands too close to bleachers next to a green. It doesn't sound like much, but it's jarring when it happens (I only found this bug on the Xbox version and only in certain instances). The game hitches when making the change from your longest club to your shortest club for about a second and a half. There's also an occasional bug with switching clubs when pitching. Like hitting a short chip from the fringe only to have it fly off the green because True-Aim gives you the carry distance (only a few yards with this shot type) with no indication that your chip will actually go flying off the green if you hit to that mark. There are some oddities and bugs that pop up every now and again, though. With those simple features added in to this year's game, Tiger Woods 11 plays better than its predecessors. Should Tiger Woods have the same amount of focus as my created golfer? I don't think so, but he does. The only detractor is that different pros don't have different levels of focus. Focus keeps them in the game (unless you up the difficulty to Tour Pro), but asks you to budget their use. The new focus mechanic is really a wonderful addition and makes you realize how much you've been relying on the spin, power-up and putt preview mechanics year-in and year-out. Once it's gone (and it depletes pretty quickly), it's just you, the ball, the hole and a ton of uncertainty. That means if you want to power up your shot, increase its accuracy, spin the ball in the air or use putt preview, you'll need to give up chunks of focus. Focus is a meter that sits on the lower left of the screen and depletes as you use the classic Tiger Woods' arcade-style powers. This, much like True-Aim, is effective at upping the difficulty, but never to a frustrating degree. Tiger Woods Multiplayer Gameplay Focus is another nuance that's been added to the gameplay of Tiger Woods. Instead, you're left to judge from the crowd and commentators' reactions how well you fared. That means there's no more camera tracking as your ball flies through the air. You have the same viewpoint as you would in real golf. True-Aim removes the accuracy circle when zooming into your shot and forces you to aim your ball entirely from an over-the-shoulder camera. True-Aim, coupled with the focus mechanic that I'll talk about in the next paragraph, helps to up the difficulty without making it frustrating. I, for one, have wanted to get closer to the real thing without having to adventure into the super-difficult Tour Pro setting. The first and biggest addition is known as True-Aim.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |