#985 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

Posted: 12th December 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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746th played so far

Genre: Sports
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: Electronic Arts

I’ve mentioned my general discomfort with sports games before, as a genre that I don’t get much out of. I can understand why they’re popular and why people would enjoy them, but I often find them awkward to control and difficult to follow.

Non-team sports tend to fare better and golf especially feels different – Golden Tee Live was its own special experience, but even Mario Golf managed to hit a decent spot and recently Golf Story has been a great early Switch hit. The PGA Tour series is the leading franchise for the golf genre, so we play what was the latest one when the original list was released – back when Tiger Woods could lead the franchise.

Our Thoughts

Let’s start by being clear about one thing – a golf game is still a golf game, and the basics of that haven’t changed. Sure, the courses here look better than ever, but in the end you’re still doing the same thing as always.

The swing system is a lot better than most. Usually there’s the system of aiming, followed by a pointer moving across a bar where you want to hit the right area. Here, you use the full range of a thumbstick, pulling back and pushing forward to simulate the swing. It’s a system that gives you more options to aim and allows for more trick shots without feeling complicated. It was intuitive and felt really satisfying to play. The game makes its limits on how far you’ll hit clear, assuming a perfect shot, which helps you put some limits in. It makes it quite easy to get through the basics of the game. You need to learn how to do it perfectly, but it’s surprisingly easy to pick up the game and just play.

The game has a lot of courses, set up in various tournament setups, as well as a bunch of cosmetics and gameplay changes to buy. It’s obviously a system to really get stuck in, but it felt less required here than it otherwise would be, which makes for a nice balance between long term gameplay and first time goes.

Final Thoughts

TIger Woods PGA Tour 10 is the best golf game I’ve played – it looks good and has more intuitive controls than most. I still struggled in places – especially putting, which (it sounds like) is a problem on most golf games anyway. There’s room for clearing things up, but on the whole it’s a decent way to play golf from your couch.