Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 Review

Tiger Woods 13 still presents a reasonably good golf game, but there isn't much new here save subtly improved PS Move and gamepad controls.


The Tiger Woods series is struggling to find its way. After sticking with the troubled superstar over the past few years of scandal and an extended slump, EA Sports doesn't seem to know what to do with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 on the PlayStation 3. This could have been a very good golf game, but its identity has been watered down with a lame mode where you play as Eldrick Tont Woods from tyke to today and beyond, and extortionate downloadable content. Gamepad swing mechanics have been nicely overhauled, PS Move support has been jazzed up to improve on last year's already very good motion-sensing controls, and the new Country Club mode promises to help the game establish an online community, but taken together, all the new features don't add up to anything meaningful.

Lil' Tiger may be cute, but the new Tiger Legacy mode needs a lot more than that to be enjoyable.

There isn't much new in Tiger Woods 13. The look and sound of the game haven't improved much over earlier releases, although there do seem to be more nifty shadow effects on courses and a few more commentary lines from main booth jockey Jim Nantz. The core game is essentially brought forward from last year in its entirety. All the main modes of play are back for another round. You can play one-off matches, set up a golfer and begin a pro career, head online for multiplayer tournaments, head to The Masters again, and so forth.

The most significant addition is Tiger Legacy, where you play as the great one in various stages of his life, from childhood to the present day and beyond. Sadly, Tiger's life was extraordinarily tedious, if this game is to be believed. EA does nothing of interest with this feature. All it does is provide different Tiger player models to look at while you shoot your way through boring challenges like dropping balls into a backyard wading pool, hitting target scores in rounds, helping Tiger break Jack Nicklaus' record for victories in the Majors, and so forth.

A much more notable change comes with the gamepad swing mechanics. Standard button pushing has been tweaked pretty extensively in the new Total Swing Control for the gamepad. It works a fair bit like the left-stick-oriented control scheme from last year, but with more options and more attention paid to things like the tempo of your swing and foot position. In other words, it's a little harder to nail long drives that split the fairway, or make accurate approach shots that land you a couple of feet from the cup, especially when you nudge the difficulty above pro. But you get used to the changes quickly.

Move support makes shots like both lifelike and awfully satisfying when pulled off correctly.

While this is a superior system, one that offers you a great deal more control in all aspects of making shots, it isn't so dramatically better that it makes the game a must-buy. That said, it does offer the best putting mechanics in the history of the series. Putting is spectacularly accurate here. The thumbstick perfectly tracks your motions when pulling back and pushing forward, letting you make some jaw-dropping 50-footers, or at least put up some valiant attempts and get close to the cup. Say good-bye to the annoying old days of cursing out your thumbs when a putt inexplicably came up too short or wound up running 20 feet too long because the controls let you down.

Move support is offered, as in last year's game, and it works well. It is clearly superior to the Kinect motion-sensing option offered in the Xbox 360 version, with more accurate movement tracking. Pretty much every move you make is registered, so you don't have to deal with the Kinect frustrations of having to take swings multiple times before they are registered by the game. But they're not just superior to the Kinect controls; they're superior to last year's Move controls, too. Previously, it was a lot tougher to tell just how much oomph you needed to put into these swinging motions when pitching and chipping and hitting out of sand or rough, which often left you coming up short or sailing past the flag. Now, the Move seems to more precisely track your motions, letting you more accurately gauge how hard you need to swing.

Putting is still a bit more of a pain than it should be, though, with too much effort needed to swing through even five-foot tap-ins. It isn't nearly as bad as last year, where it seemed more like you were swinging a scythe in a farm field than finessing putts, but it's still off. If you approach a putt with the delicate touch often needed in real life, you might be lucky to nudge the ball ahead a foot. Regardless of these putting gripes, the Move offers a very good simulation of real golf. Shots are so satisfying at times that you feel like doing some authentic Tiger fist pumps.

When you're dressed in orange from head to toe, there's nothing you can't accomplish.

A few problems get between you and the greens. While you are treated to a lot of content, with 16 courses in the main game, loads of freebies and easily unlockable equipment, and other extras, EA beats you over the head with pay-to-play DLC. A huge part of the game has been dedicated to yanking more cash out of your wallet for courses, skill boosts, equipment, and so forth. You can earn coins within the game that can be used to purchase these goodies, but this requires a spectacular amount of grinding.

If you really want the extras, most notably the numerous DLC courses that the game constantly teases you with, you pretty much have to pay for them. The same goes for the golf bag pins that provide you with various buffs during rounds. You get the first pack free, and can theoretically earn the rest of them with lots of time on the links, but it's hard to imagine finding the time to do so without quitting your job, leaving school, freeing your dog on the street to fend for himself, and so forth. With all that said, you do get a lot of content in the base game and don't absolutely need to shell out more money. But the lure of buying those instant-improvement pins is always very, very tempting.

Aim for the obnoxious fan in the plaid blazer.

One good aspect of the DLC comes with the new Country Club option. This feature lets you gather together online and play at specific clubs, just like in the real world where golfers join specific clubs and make them their homes. Coins are earned for rounds played at each club, giving you more opportunity to play those locked-out courses. This also works pretty well as a virtual clubhouse for players online, and even fosters a massively multiplayer online vibe within the game. It's easy to see how this concept could be stretched further to make an actual MMO game.

If you already have Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters on the shelf, think long and hard before buying its successor. The questionable additions like Tiger Legacy and the DLC sales pitches don't add anything to the playability on the links themselves, where it really counts. Still, the superior gamepad controls and enhanced Move support on the PS3 make the new game stand apart from its predecessor just enough to make it tempting, as long as you know going in that you're getting a mild upgrade on last year's model.

The Good
A lot of content with career mode, 16 courses, and more
Revamped gamepad controls including extremely accurate putting
Subtly improved Move controls
Promising Country Club feature
The Bad
Paltry number of new features
Tiger Legacy is a tedious waste of time
Obnoxious DLC
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I can see why they don't want to raise the score if improvements are minor, but if the game is not inferior to the old version, then the score should be at least the same. Not lower. Especially with sports games that come out every year -- if I'm not buying every version when it's new, then I'm trying to decide whether the new version is worth paying the extra over what previous editions cost now. A lower score implies that I should go with the older version, but from reading the text of the review, that doesn't seem to be the case.


@Abronz: Lowering the score for the next in a series makes complete sense. EA is simply repackaging the same thing with a few improvements and then expecting everyone to pay for it. Remember when you could get upgrades to applications at a lower price? I don't think that anyone believes that they totally rewrote the code for this game. They simply tweaked it. If your parents gave the exact same birthday gift each year in a different color how would you feel?


I think the score is fair enough - it is a bit of a niche title after all. I bought Tiger 11 and the Move controls were crap. Never bothered with last year's update so I am very pleasantly surprised by the quality of Move implementation in Tiger 13. It really is very close to 1-to-1 tracking, and it even shows up the hook that I do in real life golf. I haven't even bothered with the regular controller after a week with the game, the Move controls are that good.


can you kick your club and throw a temper tantrum in this game? no? than it's not realistic.


@yankblan...if that's the case then why does call of duty games score 8.5 and 9's on this site....I haven't purchased a TW game in a couple years and seeing that low score doesn't say go out and buy it, if the game is as good as last years with better controls it should score the same or higher, if you go by how they scored the games I should buy TW11.


@Abronz: no, it makes sense. One of the criteria for reviews is how much does it push the product forward, how much the new modes make it a must have. From reading what is above, I'll continue playing The Masters for awhile; I have no complaints about Move controls from last year, they're just fine.


So once again, we have a Gamespot review that essentially says, "Since the game is only somewhat better than last year, we're giving it a lower rating." A la Madden, MLB: The Show, etc. You folks' reviews are becoming basically of no value at all.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13

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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 is an authentic golf simulation game from Electronic Arts.
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