Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 for Nintendo Wii
Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
Categories: Golf Accessories • Golf Equipment • Reviews
Categories: Golf Accessories • Golf Equipment • Reviews
Assignment: Evaluate the new Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 golf game for the new Nintendo Wii game console. …Tough gig.
The Nintendo Wii Game Console
The first thing I need to cover is the Nintendo Wii game console itself. The Wii is the latest console with some very cool features. The unit itself has a very elegant and small footprint. It’s about the size of a one dozen golf ball box. The unit can lay flat or on it’s side with the included mount.
Cool Wireless Controllers Mimic Your Actions On Screen
Rather than having controllers which are tethered to the console with cables, the Wii’s controllers are wireless. There’s an antenna which connects to the main unit and is placed either above or below your screen. The wireless controller’s movement is picked up by the antenna resulting in the moving of cursors, rackets, clubs, fists or whatever on screen object you are controlling in the Wii environment. In short, you move the controller and a corresponding action happens on the screen.
The game which comes with the Wii has baseball, golf, bowling, tennis etc. In bowling for example, you hold down a button and actually swing your arm like you are throwing a bowling ball. In the Wii tennis game, you swing the controller like a tennis racket. This is very cool!
There’s a funny warning when you turn the Wii on. They suggest you use the wrist strap with comes with the remote (or as they call it “Wiimote”). If you take a big swing trying to hit a home run in the baseball game and lose your grip, the remote may fly right into your plasma screen.
The Wii Concept
Another neat part of the Wii is that you set up your own profile or identity. You literally create a virtual version of yourself within the Wii. You set up your hair color, eyes, head shape, body shape, gender and much more and the person you create is rendered withing the games you play. So the virtual Mediaguru played bowling, tennis etc. With the Wii’s networking capabilities you can play against players all over the world with an internet connection. Very fun.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Non Wii Version
I own several versions of Tiger Woods PGA Tour for other consoles. I have fun playing them but strangely enough I play better golf on a real course than I do with the push button, two hand controllers. To swing the club with the controllers you select the club, push a button for the back swing and release the button at the right time for the down swing. This is nothing like a real golf swing.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Wii Version – Swing the remote and swing the club!
THE best part of the Wii version of TW PGA ’07 is the wireless controller. You hold the controller just like a golf club and swing it just like a golf club. So your physical actions are almost exactly like a true golf swing. Putting and chipping are the same as well. The harder you swing the remote, the farther the ball goes. If you use an off plane swing (like outside-in) you’ll hit a slice or a hook. This is the coolest thing I’ve seen come down the video game console line for a long time.
Custom Setup
You aren’t able to use your Wii profile in TW PGA ’07 Wii. But just like previous versions of this game on other consoles, you can do a complete custom setup of your player profile. You can set up your appearance, clothes, game strengths, equipment etc.
Graphics And Sound
The graphics for TW PGA ’07 Wii are decent. It’s no Doom 3 or anything but they’re more than adequate. The sounds are great, including commentary by Gary McCord and David Feherty.
Courses
TW ’07 Wii comes with 18 courses including Pebble Beach Golf Links, St Andrews, The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island and more. Unfortunately no game will ever have the one course I’d die to play, Augusta National.
Players
There are 35 special players included in the game including John Daly, Vijay Singh, and Annika Sorenstam. The digital version of John Daly looks much better than the real thing.
Games
The are many different games you can play. You can simply play practice rounds and shots, match play, stroke play, PGA Tour Season, The Tiger Challenge and much more. You’ll be busy for a long time configuring all the options and playing all the games.
Critic’s Corner
I found playing the game quite fun. Occasionally I’d have issues with the shorter shots, namely putting. I found that you had to put a very large swing on the putts, even short ones. So while the full swing is pretty accurate, I found some inconsistencies in the short shots.
My only other critique is the lack of being able to use your Wii profile as your player in TW, rather than having to set up another one. I realize there are many more details in TW (clubs, clothes, game strengths etc) but it would be cool to at least start with your Wii identity as a template.
Conclusion
This is by far the funnest version of any Tiger Woods PGA Tour game for any console. Thanks to the Wii hardware it’s the most realistic.
For more images go to the HOG Tiger Woods PGA 2007 Nintendo Wii Photo Gallery.
Got some free Top Flite D2 balls yesterday
A while ago I signed up for some free golf balls on “The Balls To Go For It” web site at http://www.theballstogoforit.com/. I thought hell, why not get a couple of free golf balls.
They arrived yesterday and to my surprise the Top Flite D2’s didn’t feel like the old “rock flites” I thought they would. I managed to get to the 5th hole before I lost them both on this really tough course with hazards all over the place.
I didn’t really play these balls enough to do a decent review, but they felt nice off the driver and putted nicely as well. If I get more on course time with some I’ll do a better review of them…
Golfgrouch reporting Butch Harmon is Phil Michelson’s coach
The Golf Grouch has an article saying that Phil Michelson is switching from Rick Smith to Tiger Woods’ former coach Butch Harmon.
Grouchy is sprinkling the post with some possible political ramifications which are interesting, especially since he’s saying that Rick Smith might become Tiger’s coach.
Paula Creamer spotted at St. Andrews
I’ve got a good buddy over at my sister site The Golf Space named John. He’s a caddie at The Old Course in St. Andrews and he runs a service called Caddie Golf Tours which puts together golf travel packages to Scotland. He is always giving me updates of what is going on over there and sending me some of the most amazing Old Course photos ever.
A few days ago John spotted Paula Creamer over there playing some practice rounds in preparation for the Ladies’ British Open Championship. Here are a couple of Paula Creamer pics below shot by John. She’s major cute. You can see all of John’s great photos in his Golf Space photo gallery.
My putter was stolen
How personal is your putter? My Ping Zing, a manganese bronze classic, was very personal to me. My putter single handedly dashed the dreams of many opponents by sinking thousands of great putts. I had thousands of birdies with my old Zing. My Ping Zing was magic.
After at least 10 years of using the gem I found it to be missing from my bag on the #1 tee last Tuesday. Someone passed up the rest of my set of clubs and snatched it. Of all the clubs to loose… I would have preferred they take the entire rest of my bag than that putter.
My backup is a Ping Zing 2 which is stainless steel. It is a wonderful putter yes, but it just isn’t the same.
How cool is Ping?
They still make the heads for my old Ping Zing and many other “classics.” I have a new one on order, custom made and fit for me. It will be here before my first big tournament of the year in a couple of weeks. My local shop tells me that when Ping says they’ll build the club in 4-5 days and then ship, the club usually gets there in 4-5 days.
My old Zing was a very dark brown. The new one will be gold in color, which is what my old one looked like before the bronze in the putter tarnished with age. I look forward to trying out my new Zing but I’ll always miss my old one.
Ping Redwoods
I like the new Ping Redwood putters. They are apparently attempting to compete with the higher end releases from other companies. I took a few swings with a Ping Redwood Zing and it was really nice. The Ping Zing Redwood can be found at Edwin Watts Golf.
« Previous 1 … 942 943 944 945 946 … 1,165 Next »
