Review by: Brandon "Trophy Ball" Cackowski-Schnell

It's hard to imagine EA Tiburon stuffing more golf mayhem into the latest version of Tiger's venerable franchise without the beer cart busting through your living room wall while you play, delivering warm beer like it was some trailer park version of the Kool-Aide man. Between the PGA Tour mode, the race to the FedEx Cup, the tour challenges, mini games, disc golf, online play, online tournaments and the ability to best the pros at their recently completed real life tournaments, this is, by far, the most feature packed version of Tiger Woods to land on any console ever.

Granted, all of the golf courses and fairway challenges in the world doesn't mean diddly if the simple matter of swinging a club doesn't work correctly and in this regard, the game performs beautifully. With the addition of Wii Motion Plus, the game provides the closest representation to real golf that you'll find on any console. Why you'd play the game without the newly released add-on is beyond me, so just spend the extra ten bucks and get the version that comes with it. You won't be sorry.

Now, "closest" doesn't mean "perfect" as there are plenty of subtle nuances to something as complex as a golf swing which can affect your game in any number of ways, but what the Wii Motion Plus does is provide accurate feedback to your swing, sometimes with devastating results. Being able to twist your wrist ever so slightly when driving off of the tee to give your ball a gentle, arcing draw or fade is a wonderful feeling until you develop a constant draw or fade that you can't get rid off, making you want to hurl your Wiimote across the room. Figuring out how to fix said draw or fade, in my case I had to keep my head down, brings it all back though and when you finally work through those struggles and blast an arrow straight drive 275+ yards off of the tee, you get an understanding of why countless players put themselves through the torture that is golf each and every weekend all over the globe.

The Wii Motion Plus add-on also elevates what had been the franchises greatest failing for years: putting. Blasting your way to the green in two is useless if it takes you another six shots to get the ball in the cup and previous iterations of the game on the Wii had some pretty abysmal putting. In this version, putting still isn't perfect, but it's so much better than in previous versions, you won't care. You still have the option of using different putters based on your distance to the cup, but true golfers will use the new Precision Putting system. With this system, you have one putter and a combination of back swing length and downswing speed determines how far your ball will travel. Just like real putting, it can be very difficult to master, especially when your caddy tips don't quite match up with the actual slope of the green, but it is worth every teeth grinding minute of frustration to sink that 25 footer at Westchester, nabbing yourself a spot atop the leader board in the process.

My only real gripe with the swing mechanics comes from trying to deliver low power shots. The game uses a combination of back swing height, swing fluidity, bird entrails and tea leaves to determine what power you're hitting with and sometimes it can be difficult to hit with lower power. Even if your back swing is lower, if you're swing is silky smooth, it may give you 100% power and your easy three foot putt is now a 40 foot whopper. Oh sure, you can mitigate a lot of that on the fairways through club selection, but sometimes you just have to hit a little lighter and when those situations come up, I always feel like it's more luck than skill. If you find that you're having tons of problems with your swing, the club tuner option from last year is back, allowing you to tweak away your problems. When in doubt, blame the hardware. On the other hand, if you find the default modes too easy you can crank up the rules to remove caddy tips and green reading grids, bump up the sensitivity of your swing and make your good walk as spoiled as you want to.