Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11

South Park might have joked about Tiger Woods, and that his next game would be a fighter where Tiger and his wife would settle the score with a couple or iron nines, but the truth is that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is a lot more traditional than that. And compared to all the chaos that has surrounded the golfer during the last year or so, Tiger Woods in gaming form is better than ever.

At first, the game might look disturbingly complex. After you've decided how wide your golfer's nose is going to be, how his or her ears should look and how fat his/her thighs should be (and then scrapping the whole thing, pressing randomize and play the game looking like Morgan Freeman meets The Hulk) comes the start menu. It's a monster of blue lines that offers so many different gaming modes, minigames, online modes and variations of golf that it's easy to feel a bit overwhelmed. Just starting up a round of simple vanilla golf takes about half a dozen of choices. It's not that they are hard to navigate, it just comes down to the fact that you can customize your game down to the molecular level.

The analog controls from the last game makes a return - you hit by pulling back the left stick and then bringing it forward as straight as possible. The straighter the line, the stronger the hit. It's a good system, even if it can cause headaches sometimes, and in general it works really well. The game also supports Wii Motion Plus and Playstation Move, but we haven't had the chance to test either of those control schemes.

The biggest news when it comes to the gameplay in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is the focus-system. With it you can spice up your strikes in different ways, like giving them extra strength, control the spin of the balls, see previews of puts and improve your accuracy. Small changes that can make a huge difference. The genius of the system is that you can run out of focus, and the only way to get it back is to play without it for a while. Of course you gain focus a lot slower than you use it, which creates a strategic layer to the game. There's not a slow moment and every strike feels more interesting and engaging than ever. Except perhaps for the AI-players, that can make watching paint dry seem like an interesting hobby.

There's also a True Aim-mode for all the people that crave more realism, and in that mode your golfing is restricted to your eyes and your GPS. A nice addition that isn't for everyone but that will probably make a lot of golfers happy.

Another piece of news that there's been a lot of talk about is that you can now play through the Ryder Cup. It's a bit sad, since it's a pretty buggy play mode that leaves its mark on the overall impression of the game. Ryder Cup takes 12 Americans and pit them against 12 Europeans. That comes with some weird problems.

First of all, it's tricky to find 24 players online for a full cup. There's a lot of waiting involved. The amount of available characters to play is pretty limited, which means that sometimes Europeans and Americans switch nationalities or get cloned. This isn't a big problem in itself, but sometimes the game gets confused and I've seen an American in a European team swing for both teams, at the same time! A quick look across the Internet shows that I'm not alone with this problem. Except for the bugs it's well designed with 12 matches going on simultaneously. I'm also happy that the Ryder Cup is playable on all available courses and not only the special Ryder Cup-course.

Graphically there could have been a couple of improvements - the animations and the characters look really good, but the weather effects and the audience can look pretty odd. The camera can get in the way as well, especially in the putting mode. Sure, there are some nice angles, but it would have been great if we could actually see the hole!

Overall, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is a nice upgrade. The game modes are endless and the new focus-system helps to create some really enjoyable golf. If you've ever felt the urge to pick up a golf-game you really can't go wrong here. If you own last year's edition of Tiger Woods... well, you have a lot of good reasons to pick this up as well.