A Helping Hand

Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ famous coach, is now a part of the pro golfer’s game franchise. Haney chimes in with advice on how to improve your skills, most notably with specific ratings for power, accuracy, short game and putting, and provides various challenges to improve those elements. Skills are also enhanced or reduced to match your performance from each event.

It seems that putting comes naturally to me. In this game, of course – even miniature golf gets the better of me in the real world. But in Tiger Woods 09, par was saved many times by a successful putt from several yards away. Thus, after losing an event with a score of 3+ and a ranking of 75, my homemade golfer – created in the same way as in last year’s game – received a skill increase for putting.

GamerNet, the EA-branded feature that links players to the online world, has been tweaked with new challenges that are offered while you’re going through the single-player campaign. Better still, online play is now simultaneous, allowing you and three friends to compete without taking turns. Colored ball trails highlight your competitors’ locations, allowing you to see where they are on the course and how well they’re performing.

See You At The Club

Entertainment aside, you have to wonder: are the new modes developed for annual sports games really that important? Most just feel like they were tacked on at the last minute to fill a void. Many qualify as being “more of the same,” and a handful are so obscure – or worse, not even fun – that their inclusion leaves the player as clueless as a cartoon character that’s been hit on the head and has little stars floating in front of his face.

Tiger Woods 09 defies the industry standard (or lack thereof) by introducing a mode that is not only unique but is also useful to players of all skill levels: Club Tuner. This mode transports you to a special night course where your only goal is to hit the ball as hard as possible. Successful swings are met with a green ball, average swings turn the ball yellow, and lousy swings are colored red. These clear symbols make it easy to track your progress as each ball soars down the course.

After taking a few swings, tap the R1 button to get Hank Haney’s take on the situation. He’ll rate your success and, if you fail to get an A or A+ rating, will offer a pointer or two. If he thinks you should increase the power and workability of your swing, his recommended settings will be marked on the tuning screen. This feature allows you to look at the current maximum potential of your club settings and receive real-time visual feedback (in the form of a line that travels from your golfer to the ball’s final destination) as you make each adjustment. Power, workability, loft, spin and draw may be adjusted to suit your style, and each can be tested immediately following the change.

The Club Tuner is a fantastic way to track and enhance your clubs, but there is one thing I wish could be changed: when switching clubs or features within the tuner, the balls disappear. Though you don’t necessarily need them if you pay attention to the yard rating, keeping the balls on screen would have allowed players to view their adjustments over a period of time. This wouldn’t have been possible on PSone, and maybe not even PS2 due to the lack of RAM needed to keep these images on screen. But surely it couldn’t pose a threat to PS3.

Keep Your Comments to Yourself

In the area of sound, particularly non-Hank Haney commentary, Tiger Woods 09 could use some work. Swing-by-swing analysis is provided, pointing out every great moment and every failure. But while their comments may seem fresh and interesting on the first hole, it’s a whole other story by the time you reach the 18th.

The commentary is by no means the most accurate you’ll hear in a sports game. They’ll get it right more than 50% of the time – not a great achievement yet still more impressive than the majority what we’ve heard on PS3 and Xbox 360 in the last couple of years. But you’ll be annoyed when there’s praise for a landing when the ball didn’t go as far as you had anticipated. Part of the problem is that as a player you’re able to adapt to each situation. You can look at the course, predict any pitfalls, check the wind’s direction and decide the best move. If there’s a risk of sand or water, you may not want to swing as hard as possible.

As gamers know all too well, video game AI is unable to react in those kinds of situations. For now you’ll get bashed lightly because it appears that you messed up or chose the wrong club, but will be praised later if you make par or better. Disappointingly, there is rarely a moment where the commentators come to life by saying something like, “He came from behind!” or “I never thought he’d pull that off!” The commentary is a strict by-the-script layout of sentences that are too few in their variety to prevent repetition from taking over.

Tiger Woods 09 doesn’t break new ground or redefine this long-running series. But the additions are noteworthy, useful, and should be a permanent part of the game and any sequels that follow. Worth playing for certain – but at $60, only diehard fans and newcomers may find it to be worth every penny.