If you’re like me, you’ve been a longtime fan of the Tiger Woods games on the Wii but you were disappointed with Tiger Woods 09’s mere incremental upgrades and overly frustrating putting system. If you’re not like me, you probably yelled at me for being down on the game, accusing me of never playing golf in real life and wondering why-oh-why anyone would pay me to write about gadgets for a living. Let’s put all that behind us and wait patiently for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, as it’ll be called, which will feature MotionPlus.
I can almost guarantee that TW10 for the Wii will be an excellent game. As I said in my review of Tiger Woods ‘09, “Nintendo Wii, as a gaming system, was meant for golf.” I’ll soon say, “MotionPlus, as an add-on for the Wii-mote, was meant for golf, which as you’ll recall, is what the Wii was meant for. I mean, for which the Wii was meant. For what which the Wii was—damn it, crap hell poo.” I have some time to work on the new quote.
At any rate, the addition of MotionPlus should make the already-solid driving and long iron game in Tiger Woods even better, but what I’m most excited about is how things will hopefully improve once you start getting closer and closer to the green. Flop shots, pitch shots, chipping, and the like have always been kind of a crap shoot on the Wii. The precision and accuracy that MotionPlus promises ought to make the short game much more realistic.
Putting, too. I’m hoping MotionPlus allows EA to implement a super simple putting system. With any luck, it’ll be just like real life. If you’re 30 feet from the cup, you’ll hit the ball harder than you would if you were five feet from the cup. A nice, straightforward back-and-forth putting system – no club changes, minimal left-and-right positioning, just taaap it in. Just taaap it in.
There’s currently no hard and fast pricing for the MotionPlus add-on but word on the street is that it’ll come bundled for free with Wii Sports Resort, which is due this spring. Perhaps they’ll bundle it with other games as well.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told the Wall Street Journal the following:
There will be games that will be enhanced by the Wii Motion Plus as well as games that can only be played with it. Users will need four if they have four controllers, but we’re going to try to offer it for as little as possible. We haven’t announced the price yet, but the cost of making the Wii MotionPlus is not that much, so I think we can make it very affordable.
It’d be nice if it was priced at $9.99 or less on its own or included with early MotionPlus-enhanced games, but I’d think something closer to $15 to $20 might be more on-target.
[via Joystiq]