Game Reviews

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12

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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12

Say what you like about Tiger Woods's personal life - there's no denying he's ruddy good at hitting tiny balls.

And if you're the owner of an Xperia Play, you can now try and emulate his Titleist-thwacking skills with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.

It might not be the perfect golf simulator, and it's too po-faced to be an arcade fun fest, but there's still plenty to like about Tiger's maiden appearance on the platform.

A good walk bettered

This Xperia Play version plays a little differently from its iOS cousin, implementing a control system that maps your swings and club selections to the Play's slide-out buttons.

Your swing - the most important part of the game - is governed by the right circle pad. You pull back to ready it, then slide forward to give your dimpled ball a hefty whack.

It's a neat system that works pretty well. Given there's very little mention of the button-based controls during the gameplay tutorials, though, it wouldn’t surprise us to see most people end up adopting the touchscreen method instead.

Tiger's slightly blunted claws

While the swing mechanism is well-built and intuitive, the rest of the game lacks a dash of sparkle. The visuals are solid, the sound effects are exactly as you'd expect, but there's no big hook or single feature that will stir the loins.

Don't get me wrong: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is a perfectly playable title. It's just a shame that beyond that impressive control system, there's not much else to really get excited about.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12

There's plenty of good stuff in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12, but it by no means heralds a revolution in the golfing genre
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Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.