Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play | 
| From: Electronic Arts
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $46.99
You Save: $3.00 (6%)
New (26) Used (2) from $42.99
Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 60
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Genre: golf_games
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Operating System: Nintendo Wii
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 15546
Model: 15546
UPC: 014633155464
EAN: 0014633155464
ASIN: B00160PA4E
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Battle your friends in 15 fun and challenging mini-games that keep the competition fierce, long after you have finished your round | | • | Tiger Woods' real life coach Hank Haney will guide you through your career right from the start and help you improve your confidence | | • | Get the most out of every club with the Club Tuner, an all-new swing-control feature that allows you to calibrate your clubs to fit your personal tendencies and preferences | | • | Coach Haney will be constantly watching your performance and assessing areas for improvement | | • | Ball trail visuals indicate your competitors' shots, allowing you to swing whenever you're ready |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Everyone Plays, Anyone Can Win Whether you're a seasoned veteran or hitting the links for the first time, now everybody swings on an even playing field in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 All-Play. Your career begins under the watchful eye of Hank Haney, Tiger Woods' real-life coach, who takes you under his wing, helps you tune your clubs, and provides training drills to help improve your game. With experience under your belt and confidence as your ally, take aim at family, friends, and rivals in fun and challenging game modes, including the new Golf Party mini-game mode. With improved swing mechanics, an all-new controller system, and tutelage from one of the game's best coaches, play your way to the top of the leaderboard with Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 All-Play. 
 | Key Features
- EA SPORTS All-Play-An all-new controller system allows golfers of all skill levels to play on an even playing field, removing the guesswork as the game shows you exactly where your ball will travel before every shot.
- All-New Golf Party Mode-Battle your friends in 15 fun and challenging mini-games that keep the competition fierce, long after you have finished your round.
- All-New Performance Coach-Tiger Woods' real-life coach, Hank Haney, guides you through your career by assessing your performance and providing tips to increase your skills.
- Maximize Your Swing-Get the most out of every club with the Club Tuner, an all-new swing control feature that allows you to calibrate your clubs to fit your personal tendencies and preferences.
- All-New Online Simultaneous Play-For the first time on the Nintendo Wii, compete with a live foursome in the time it takes to play a single-player round. Ball trail visuals indicate your competitors' shots, allowing you to swing whenever you're ready.
- New Courses and Golfers-Test your skills on new courses, including Gary Player Country Club in South Africa, Wentworth Country Club in England, and more, while international stars Se Ri Pak, Darren Clarke, and others join the competition.
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Practice makes perfect
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Check out new courses
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Grip it and rip it
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Product Description
Whether you're a seasoned veteran or hitting the links for the first time, now everybody swings on an even playing field, in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. Your career begins under the watchful eye of Hank Haney, Tiger Woods' real-life coach, who takes you under his wing, helps you tune your clubs, and provides training drills to help improve your game. With experience under your belt and confidence as your ally, take aim at family, friends, and rivals in fun and challenging game modes, including the new Golf Party mini-game mode. With improved swing mechanics, an all-new controller system, and tutelage from one of the game's best coaches, play your way to the top of the leader board with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. All new swing controls provides a one to one relationship between what you're doing with the Wii remote and what your player is doing on screen, for the ultimate control and accuracy with every swing. For the first time on the Nintendo Wii, compete with a live foursome in the time it takes to play a single-player round
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| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 Putting has gotten worse, McCord and Feherty are gone August 27, 2008
Doug Aamoth
46 out of 60 found this review helpful
The Good
There's finally online multiplayer and it works really well. The simultaneous shot mode present in online play is a great idea that allows up to four people to play 18 holes in a reasonable amount of time without being forced to watch everyone else's shots.
The party game mode is fun to play with other people who don't have the patience for a full round and the new All-Play swing system lets beginners pick up the game pretty easily. Finally, the menus are easier to navigate this year and Hank Haney is a solid, if somewhat gimmicky, addition to the franchise.
The Bad
The putting system is atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. I'm really confused as to why EA has made this feature worse and worse every year. I felt a pit in my stomach as I played through my first 18 holes because the putting system was ruining the entire game. We've put up with wonky chipping and short-iron play through the first two versions and I would have been able to begrudgingly dismiss it one more year except that the putting has now gotten so bad that it ruins the game.
Case in point; on advanced swing mode, you now have to eyeball every putt. No preview, no putting line, no nothing. The grid on the putting green does little to help you discern where your putt's going to end up, though. It's a leap of faith every time.
There is a putt preview feature if you use standard swing mode, but it's different from last year's version. Last year, you had a putt preview timer that allowed you to basically take a practice putt (or two or three). If you used up your putt preview timer before the end of your round, you had to eyeball it for the remaining holes. Some would argue that it made putting too easy.
Whatever the case, this year you have a putt preview that you can use once per putt. You basically line up your putt and hit the putt preview, which will show you your putting line. If the line leads straight to the hole, great, putt away. If not, you'll need to exit the preview and readjust your putt. You'll have already used up your putt preview, though, so you'll have to trust yourself.
So you end up not sinking as many super-long putts like you may have last year, but - BUT! - it's up close where the putting system really starts to fall apart. For some reason, EA chose to treat ten foot putts to a ten foot power gauge. So what would naturally seem like a nice, easy, soft tap-in now requires a full-bore swing just to get to the hole. You will, I promise you, miss putt after putt after putt. The short ones, especially. I miss putts in this game that I'd make in real life. That's just wrong.
The Ugly
This 1-to-1 natural swing feature is all hype. Search for "Tiger Woods 09 Wii" on YouTube to find a video starring a couple of the game developers. At the 1:17 mark, the guy says "What that's gonna do in Tiger this year is really gonna let you to place the ball where you want it on the course." Insanity. The partial swings are as broken in Tiger Woods 09 as they were in 08 and 07. Nothing has changed. You'll try to play a half-swing and you'll hit it at 80% to 90% power instead of 50%. These partial shots have never, ever worked on the Wii and they still don't, despite EA's claims.
The Super Ugly
Guess what feature EA's left off of all the marketing materials for the Tiger Woods franchise? They dumped Gary McCord and David Feherty as announcers and replaced them with - ready for this? - The Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman and Sam Torrance. All the same dialogue from the previous games are there, except now Tilghman's a comedian and Torrance sounds like a Scottish version of Robert on Everybody Loves Raymond (except not funny). Whether you liked McCord and Feherty or not, those two at least made the game seem realistic and they offered some funny one-liners every now and again. Tilghman and Torrance are just as bad, if not worse, as the decision to do radio style broadcasting for Madden 08 last year. It's really awful.
Recommendation
If you already have Tiger Woods 07 or 08 on the Wii and you don't care about playing online or All Play or the party mode mini-games, save your money. If you really, really, really want to play online but don't care about five- or six-putting every hole after you've launched a 30-foot chip over the green two or three times, then go ahead and pick this one up. If EA can patch the putting, you could get by with this game. If they patch the chipping, it'd be a no-brainer. They're not going to patch Tilghman and Torrance, though, so just get ready to turn that portion of the audio off right away.
All in all, a disappointing return after a year of development.
 Golf Shold be Difficult September 11, 2008
Professor (New York City)
37 out of 40 found this review helpful
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All Play for the Wii is an excellent golf simulation. I have read the complaints about the putting. Listen, putting was far too easy on ealier iterations. Putting on Tiger 09 can be mastered, but guess what? Doing so takes effort and practice and touch and hard work--just as putting in real life does. The satisfaction from becoming skilled and consistent is just what a golf game should demand. In like manner, mastering the full or partial swing takes time and effort. Good, golf is a difficult and demanding sport,a humbling experience. Tiger 09 for the Wii is terrific, a golfer's delight, if not a gamer's delight. Buy it, master it, and experience the satisfaction for learning how to do something difficult very, very well.
 For those worried about the putting... September 9, 2008
K. Bennett
31 out of 33 found this review helpful
I'll save a long review and just dive in on how to deal with the putting.
The putting is initially awful BUT, I repeat BUT you CAN EASILY fix it. For each putt you're given a maximum putt distance meter.
So if it's 10 feet to the cup the game sets your maximum backswing of 100% to go 10 feet. I.e. pull all the way back on the putt for a 10 foot putt and the ball will go 10 feet assuming a flat surface.
The problem is the game doesn't recognize grade. Just like in real golf that's up to you the user to control for.
If you push up or down on the d-pad you can adjust this putt meter. I do this for all of my putts because I don't want to get a 100% backswing everytime, there's no margin for error.
So say I have a 10 foot putt that is slightly uphill, I push up on the d-pad and this little aiming arrow that is above the cup will move away from my player and adjust the putt meter from 10 feet to 15 feet or 20 feet or whatever I want.
Say I stop the putt meter at 20 feet for my 10 foot putt now i can whack the putt at 80% to 85% (there's some touch involved it is golf--well video game golf--after all) and instead of barely rolling 10 feet with a 100% swing for the 10 foot putt meter I now have enough power to hit the ball 12 or so which if I've paced it right and aligned it right will be plenty to get the ball in the hole.
It's a long explaination that takes 10 seconds to demostrate in the game. Problem solved and a very good is saved from being ruined by crappy directions in the manual.
Best Console Golf Game October 8, 2008
To Be Simple
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
I have played dozens of golf games dating back to golf on the Commodore-64. Some games have been completely pathetic, while others have been relatively good. I bought Tiger Woods 09 for the Wii basically because I like to try most every golf game that hits the market. My expectations for this game were actually fairly low, as EA has not exactly put out killer software for the Wii.
Having put in over 30 hours with Tiger Woods 09 I can safely say that this is the most fun console golf game I have ever played. Not only is the game incredibly deep with an absolute ton of modes of play, but it also sports a great online component. The developers really did a good job of making TW09 a truly fun multi-player experience.
What makes Tiger Woods 09 such a great game is the control. The 1:1 swing mechanic can be tuned in a variety of ways. It takes some getting used to in terms of shot strength, but once the user gets it down the game is butter. As far as putting is concerned, this is the best putting system in a golf game, no questions asked. Yes, the putting system may seem confusing at first, but after spending some time with it the user will realize that putting in TW09 is as close to real-life putting yet seen in a golf game. Everything from the clearly visible slope on the greens to the depth of resources the putting system provides to the user makes hanging out on the green a joy.
As to be expected, the graphics of the Wii version of Tiger Woods 09 are not as detailed as those of the 360/PS3 versions, but they are still not too shabby. I particularly like the way the undulations and elevation changes on each hole are depicted.
Finally, EA smartly included an "All-Play" level of difficulty that allows inexperienced or less-skilled gamers to be able to be competitive. Of course, there are standard and advanced difficuly levels as well. This allows someone who has never played the game or is not very good to be able to play with a seasoned TW pro and still have fun without being blown out of the water. I like to play on the hardest difficulty level, but when someone comes over to the house they still have fun since they can play on the easier mode.
Overall, Tiger Woods 09 is exactly the type of sports game Wii owners deserve. It wonderfully takes advantage of the controller technology, offers a ton of modes of play and customizations, and has a high fun factor. Get this game and spend some time learning to play it properly. You will not be sorry.
Why the putting?! August 27, 2008
J. Murphy
10 out of 28 found this review helpful
Bear in mind I've only played two rounds.
*The game seems to have some cool new features, many of which I have yet to explore.
*The Tiger challenge mode for earning points and raising your abilities is still annoyingly slow having to watch your opponent hit their awful shots.
*They were smart to cut back on the absurdly generous putt preview from '08 - though that could have been a much smaller allotment of preview time rather than a new system.
*The graphics are a bit improved and look great.
*I haven't played online yet, but if there are enough people out there, playing live will be sweet - maybe enough reason to buy the game.
**I cannot believe they messed with the putting system from '08.
It was the most comfortable and intuitive system (you adjusted the length and speed of your swing and had so much feel) and I was sure it could never be topped - but for some reason they decided to attempt that and completely blew it. Now it's back to WiiSports style full swing on every putt and feels awful - no connection at all to a realistic stroke.
***The first time I created a character and started playing there was a glitch where my A button would not zoom in, making the game essentially unplayable if you can't see where your shot is landing. Reseting did nothing, I had to delete my profile and start a new one and it was corrected. Had I taken the time to fully customize my facial features it would have been incredibly irritating. As is, I hope it was a one time thing, doesn't happen to others, and doesn't randomly occur midway through my season.
The putting won't keep me from playing and, if I'm allowed to edit my review, I'll see if my feelings need revision after some more time with the new system. I'll also post whether online competition is readily available. If not, and if you played and liked the '08 version, I'd say pass for now.
Sorry EA, but you ruined the perfect putt.
-John
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