Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (Wii) Review

EA start off by giving you a little tutorial. You have to hold the Wii Remote as if it were a golf club, holding down B and swinging through your shot to hit the ball. Lies. For one, the game never really works out what you're doing and is never sensitive enough for our liking. If you swing back and forwards too quickly, even if it would make sense in the real world of golf, your in game counterpart will get all confused and either shank the ball or simply not hit it at all. When you come into the game as a total beginner (perhaps for some multiplayer fun with friends) this is a massive handicap for anyone who hasn't 'worked out' the game.

Allow us to elaborate. What you do, and what the golfer on screen does, is vastly different. Once you press B, any movement you make, even if you just twitch, the game reads it as your back-swing having begun; this can mean that when you start your actual back-swing the game interprets this as being your forward swing to hit the ball and consequently plays an awful shot that normally ends up swimming with the fishes. Were the game to have proper motion sensing and to be clear on how it reads your swing it might be easier to play, as it is, Tiger Woods on Wii is a bit of a confusing experience.

And don't even get us started on putting. For some reason, the game tells you to flick your wrists quickly to perform deft putts. Oh really? Well, it doesn't actually pick up anything even vaguely 'quick' meaning you can stand there for ages like a total twit as the game obliviously ignores everything you do. Eventually you'll work out your best putting technique, but if you're anything like us, it won't look anything like putting.

What we find wonderfully amusing is this game plays better when you set up the swing control through the analogue stick. To do this, simply plug in the nun-chuck and change the control settings and you now have the PS2 version of Tiger ready and raring to go. Admittedly, this somewhat destroys the point of buying it on the Wii. So perhaps we've been a little harsh on this version of the title? It does excel in fun little areas like spin, fade and bounce. When the ball is in the air, to influence the spin on it and how it lands, you simply have to hit a direction on the D-Pad and then frantically wave about the Wii Remote like a crazed idiot. Fun!

Elsewhere, some nice touches to the Wii version include a power gauge that shows you how far the shot you've played is going (86% for example, out of a possible 100%) and the ability to do a practice swing. Simply press the minus button and then swing to your hearts content. You won't touch the ball but you can see how hard and straight you are hitting the ball in order to work out the perfect swing.

There are all the usual game modes thrown in along with some rather irritating mini-games and alternative challenge modes (hitting balls through hoops, etc) and with a total of 18 courses in the Wii version and a full version of the PGA Tour mode to enjoy, there is a lot to get to grips with. Graphically, the game is very disappointing. On some courses, the water looks like it is made of concrete, with the ducks that float on top of it seemingly levitating over a large shiny car park. Needless to say, we are not impressed. No sir.

What we find most infuriating is that this is quite obviously a very good game, but it is let down by an utterly baffling control system. It doesn't pick up your movements, it doesn't replicate the movements of golf and if you try to be subtle and clever it punishes you by not being able to work out what you're trying to do. In the end, we simply admitted defeat and played the game as it was forcing us to do. This can be done by sitting on a sofa and simply wafting your hands about...not very exciting at all. This is a game that takes forever to get used to and isn't in the least bit intuitive.