Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 All-Play isn't quite the golfing revolution that it was promised to be when it was announced that EA Tiburon would be rebuilding the series for the Wii from the ground up, but that shouldn't keep you from playing it.

First, let's get the disappointing news out of the way, namely that the goal of the 1:1 golf swing has yet to be realized. This year's version comes close, but it's still not exact. When bringing up the club for your backswing, you'll see a 1:1 representation, perfect for when you're not looking to hit with full power, however the game needs to know how quickly and how fluidly you're completing your swing to register how well you've hit the ball. For the most part, the system works well, however hitting with less than full power can still be dodgy as the game uses a combination of downswing speed and backswing height to register how hard you hit the ball. With this method, you may not do a full backswing, but hit the ball hard enough to give the ball more oomph than you intended. It takes some time to learn, and you may find yourself going down a club or two until you learn it, but, just like in real golf, once you spend enough time with it you'll be laying up with no problems.

Putting is also similarly wonky; however in a huge improvement over last year's version, the power meter that comes up when you're swinging shows the percentage relative to the chosen putting distance, rather than be a scale from zero to 120 feet. The putt preview mode makes a return with this version as well, however its precision is a bit lacking. Relying solely on the putt preview mode may cause your ball to go flying past the hole, or come up short. Besides, nothing beats good old trial and error for learning how to read greens. The biggest gripe about putting is that, other than putting your aiming marker right on the cup, there's no easy way to see how long of a putt you're looking at. It's certainly bearable, but it's an odd omission.

When the various swing mechanics work, and they do work most of the time, it is an absolute blast to bring the Wiimote back, unleash a thundering downswing and see your golfer absolutely destroy the ball off of the tee. For those that have never played a game of digital golf, the swing mechanics are easy enough to pick up and enjoy, however if the default controls are still too daunting, players can turn on the All-Play controls. When the All-Play controls are on, a white arc shows players exactly where their ball will go, taking all of the guess work out of shot planning and allowing the player to just grip it and rip it. Experienced players will find it way too easy, and may balk at getting shown up by those relying on the All-Play mode, but any thing that gets non-gamers up and involved is a good thing.

Along with the All-Play controls, this year's version boasts a bunch of new additions, including five new courses, all new commentators, and, what may just be the most fun addition to golf since they started selling beer on the back 9, Party Golf. Party Golf is puts two to four golfers against each other in five, ten or fifteen different golf mini-games. The games range from seeing who can complete three holes in the least amount of time, score notwithstanding, to who can chip a ball closest to the cup in three tries to an extremely fun game of golfing Othello where hitting a bullseye on a grid causes it to change colors, and any neutral targets between taken targets are automatically turned. After each match, there's a putting mini-game that allows for more points to be scored, or battle tokens to be rewarded. Battle tokens allow players to take control over their own, or an opponent's ball in the air, allowing for helpful or hurtful mid-air nudges. The game does a good job of awarding points and battle tokens to those falling behind in an effort to keep things even which makes for some very fun, and tense, to the wire finishes.