Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

To start, I'm not a big golf enthusiast. Hell, I don't follow golf at all, only like to play a golf game occasionally. The main reason I purchased PGA Tour 12 was it's Move compatibility & the fact that I had just then bought a new Move kit & wanted to try it out. This game didn't disappoint, even in it's Move features.

What's best about EA's PGA Tour 12 is that it is incredibly detailed, not to mention with all the Augusta National Master's courses. Talking of courses, the visuals are superb if you can ignore the cheesy character animations - there's an option to turn those off. Audio is good, but I found the crowd to be a little less responsive with their cheers. Gameplay is solid and controls provide many options without being difficult to grasp for anyone new to a golf sim. Caddie recommendations are a welcome addition and give the feel of really playing the sport with someone else by your side, however you'd want to be going for custom shots once you've got hold of how things work.

Move compatibility is appreciable. In fact this one of the few retail games out there that really use the Move in a constructive manner. However, as is obvious, it is not accurate. I found getting a shot with 100% power extremely difficult while mimicking those golf drives in front of my TV and PS Eye with the Move, no matter how hard I swung it. Funny you can get that power instantly with a flick of the thumb with the faithful Dualshock 3. In the context of Move, putting the greens and applying the correct power in fairway shots were the most fun parts for me.

Online multiplayer is very less populated though, I found it difficult to even enter a match 2-3 months after release. However, playing online I didn't encounter any issues even with my slow connection, it was smooth.

There's a lot to do in PGA Tour 12 - Tiger At The Masters; where you get to replay a Woods' Master's wins, Masters' Moments; just try and get the gold repeating and reliving these iconic moments from the Masters' history, your created golfer's extensive (read Extensive) golf career, course mastery objectives and challenges, and the trophy set for PS3 is so varied with hefty requirements that I can spend my entire life getting the platinum.

There's one thing though that I particularly hated about this game - the strange inability to configure/change the shot stick universally in the options - the stick you use on the wireless controller to hit drives. The game's default is the left stick but I like using the right one. Only place you can change this option is when playing, in the pause menu. And that too you'll have to set every time you play in a new game mode with a new golfer (other than your created one). I was personally literally shocked to not find such a setting in the game options. I once entered a multiplayer game with this left-stick setting and was battered by other players, because I couldn't hit a decent shot with it, add to that, I couldn't even change it during the online multiplayer game.

With the Move compatibility tweaked to be better, the shot stick option added and character animations improved, I'm looking forward to an exceptionally improved PGA Tour 13 next year.