First Look: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 Wii

Tiger's just about ready to get back into the swing of things.

Last year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for Nintendo Wii was an outstanding addition to the series, implementing not only precision WiiMotion-plus supported gameplay, but also online play and a number of other features specifically made for all ages.  (Frisbee golf, yay!)  This year's game, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, gets a little more down to business, with a new emphasis on one of the game's biggest tournaments and a new first-person perspective that will change the way you look at video game golf forever.

This  new technology is known as TrueView, althougb it's the classic third-person perspective is still available if you liked things the way they are.  Still, this mode is worth trying at least once, and could grow on you.  Essentially, this puts you right into Tiger's shoes, allowing you to see where your target is on the course, and then look down at the ball and swing away at it, only to look up and see where it ends up.  In this view mode, power and accuracy are absolutely critical.  In the first few times we tried this mode, the ball didn't go that far (c'mon, we can do better than 48 percent power!) and it sliced because our wrists weren''t in the exact spot we wanted when we followed through on our swing.  The game once again reads your wrist movements and, in some particular points, your body movements, so that you feel every bit of your approach.  This is one of those very few instances where things you do in a golf game can prove beneficial to a real-life golf swing, if you partake in both activities.  All of these tie into the Tour Pro Swing feature, where you'll adapt to certain things and become a better golfer overall -- if you're up for the challenge.  (If not, hey, shift back to third-person and have a field day.)

Last year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 emphasized on the power of taking on pros and winning tournaments.  Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is no different, as this year's effort focuses more on the Ryder Cup.  This tournament brings together some of the best players in both America and Europe, in a team competition format to see who is truly the best at its sport.  It's a friendly competition, mind you (they do it every year in the PGA), but it's one that really brings out the best in the world of golf.  You'll play at the Celtic Manor Resort in Wales to settle the score, and EA allowed us to try out the course for ourselves.  The holes we swung through actually looked like true representatives of the tournament, with challenging water hazards, sandtraps and other things getting between us and the green.  (This is why power and accuracy were a hassle when we first started out -- damn water.)  International golfing sensation Rory McIlroy heads up the European team, while Tiger takes the lead for the United States.

If you're not too pleased with your own team, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 gives you the option to create your own, hand-picking whichever golfer you want to join you and even letting you make yourself in the game to head them up.  This is a great new option, as you can challenge whoever you please and win the Ryder Cup all for yourself.  Furthermore, online play returns for the Wii version, giving you a brand new option called Online Team Play.  Here, you can challenge twelve-on-twelve in true Ryder Cup fashion, seeing who truly is the best in the world.

We didn't have enough time to check out a number of other courses in the game (several favorites are returning, and there are new ones as well), nor did the company go into too much detail about what other golfers would be joining (although a few female pros are joining the cut this time around).  However, we'll be covering that much more in-depth in the weeks ahead here at GamePlayBook, so stay tuned.  Meanwhile, count the days for this game's June 8th release.  It's really shaping up to be something spectacular.  But then again, that's the way it went with last year's release.

(We'll preview the other versions as well, so look forward to that.)