Tiger Woods keeps good company. He stands with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus as the only men to win the Masters more than 3 times. He’s a dominant athlete that’s changed the face of his sport, just like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan before him. And just like Lebron James or even non-athletes like Mark Zuckerberg, his entrance on an international stage at a very young age can truly be described as phenominal. With the release of Tiger Woods 10 for the Wii, he joins the rare company of (fictional and immortal!) characters that have starred in a game good enough to move hardware. And NINTENDO hardware to boot.
Unlike last year’s game, EA chose the Wii as the lead platform for Tiger Woods 10. That effort’s been rewarded out of the gate with shining review scores. More importantly, it’s finally making good one EA’s “All Play” effort to bring Nintendo’s more casual Wii-owning audience into the sports game fold. A Sunday golfer in his 30′s could easily pick this game up and play alongside his entire family, with plenty of fun minigames and varying difficulty levels to keep everyone entertained.
Tiger's Frisbee Golf mode adds a much-needed party game appeal
In a move that really surprised me, Tiger comes bundled with the new Wii Motion Plus peripheral, fully a month ahead of the first compatible first-party title, Wii Sports Resort. When I first saw Motion Plus at last year’s E3, I thought Nintendo would go for the identical release plan as N64′s Rumble Pack, which came packed in with Star Fox 64 for its introduction.
I certainly hope we see more support from third party devs for Motion Plus. Tiger uses it correctly, and it makes a huge difference in the overall feel of the game. It really connects with most of the things that make playing golf fun, especially when you bring some other players into the room. Here’s hoping all the attention and TLC this title obviously benefitted from during development pays dividends for EA on the shelves, too.
