Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, a staple of the EA franchise, is an impressive sports game. This year's edition offers improved graphics and major changes to the control mechanics, but changes to the progression and DLC systems sully a great golfing simulator.

Most of the gameplay happens in career mode. Players choose a golfer and gain experience by progressing through courses. Key to the player's success is mastering the biggest change to the game, the new Total Control System (TCS).

In previous games, the success of a shot depended on how well the player accommodated for conditions and whether players hit the ball as instructed. With the new system, the motion of the left thumb-stick defines every part of the shot. Pulling the stick back and then quickly moving it straight forward ensures a good strike of the ball. Sound simple? It's not.

Mastering the subtleties is essential to winning tournaments. Unfortunately, the game makes no effort to explain how the TCS works and the trial-and-error learning that players have to endure can be frustrating. However, once the player masters it, the game begins to shine.

Although using Kinect is an option, it is no real alternative. The motion control is so frustrating that it's actually pointless. While swinging one's arms to hit a ball is a lot of fun, all the other motions are very frustrating. Fine-tuning one's aim is almost impossible, the voice controls are unresponsive, and the menu systems are completely counterintuitive.

Another frustrating aspect of the gameplay and progression is the use of 'pins' - temporary perks that players can use when playing a course, like increasing accuracy or shot previews. Pins have limited uses and players require 'coins' to purchase replacement pins. They earn coins by completing courses and these can, in turn, be used to purchase access to new courses.

Unfortunately, the coin system is completely unbalanced. To unlock a single course, players require about six hours' of gameplay, and strangely, this only allows temporary access. To unlock the course permanently, players need to perform "gold mastery" tasks, like hitting five eagles or hitting the green 80 times. These are often very difficult and time-consuming to complete. Alternatively, players can spend some MS points to purchase additional coins, but somehow this feels like a rip-off.

The Tiger legacy game mode replays some of the biggest moments in Tiger Woods' career. But the developers squandered the opportunity to appeal to die-hard Woods fans. Because the controls are so hard to master and the game doesn't tell players how to improve their shots, it's inevitable that replaying the same shot over and over will become frustrating.

The core of Tiger Woods PGA Tour is its mechanics. The TCS is a significant improvement over previous games and adds a completely different dimension to the swing control. Unfortunately, the coins and DLC system is nothing more than blatant exploitation and detracts so much from the core game that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.