From Kinect support to the chance to reenact Tiger Woods' upbringing, "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13" boasts its share of new features for the back of the box.
But the most paramount addition by far to "TW13" is a new swing mechanic that isn't even a new way to swing so much as a dramatically better way to understand how your swing works.
The act of swinging hasn't fundamentally changed: You still pull back on the left stick for the backswing and push forward to follow through.
But "TW13" finally properly relays the importance of maintaining a steady tempo by making it effortless to gauge it. An inconspicuous meter provides an overlay for your swing's ideal span while that swing is in process, and a swing feedback system uses layman's terms and dead-simple visuals to grade the speed, power and accuracy of your backswing and follow-through.
Study them, and eventually the tempo just comes naturally — something that might happen with or without this interface, but never so knowingly and with this much satisfaction.
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"TW13" offers a comparable interface upgrade for planning shots as well. Along with the usual tricks — zooming in to see your lie, asking your caddie for help — you can adjust your stance on two different levels and put precise-to-the-degree spin on the ball.
Per usual, numerous difficulty tuners allow novices and pros to respectively automate the planning process or do completely away with assists. But the presence of these new interfaces is a godsend for the rest of us who want to understand this stuff and do it ourselves.
The interfaces are subtle, but they do the job perfectly, and their inclusion alone marks the biggest fundamental step forward this series has taken in years.
New way to play
The monumental upgrade for "TW13's" traditional controls stands at awkward odds with the series' new Kinect control scheme, which is beholden to that tech's minuscule appetite for precision.
To golf with Kinect, you actually face the screen instead of golf toward it (as you would with the Wii or Playstation Move remotes). That's necessary for the Kinect to see your swing motion's span, but it also means "TW13" can't register the minutiae of a swing's accuracy nearly as sharply as traditional controls can.
Other quirks abound. Planning a shot with motion alone is laborious, the menus are too touchy, and while some of the gestures (crouching to look at the ball, shading your eyes to zoom) are amusing, the Kinect's occasional tendency to completely ignore a swing is not.
The controls are fun for giggles and local multiplayer, but they hold no candle to the traditional scheme if you're playing to excel.
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("TW13's" Move support, now in its third year, has a greater capacity for grading your swing honestly, but it, too, is best relegated for casual play.)
Relive the highlights
Alongside returning features (career, four-player online/offline multi-player, global online tournaments), "TW13's" most novel new feature is the Tiger Legacy Challenge, wherein you relive Tiger's career highlights — and not just as a pro.
"TW13" adds the Woods family yard to its roster of venues, and you get to play out Tiger's childhood accomplishments as well as his amateur and professional feats.
For social players, the Online Country Club feature is likely more intriguing. You can join other clubs while managing your own, which entails inviting members, poring over petitions for rule changes, and creating member tournaments. You also can challenge other clubs on the course.
Elsewhere, a Skills Challenge feature introduces a dynamic (and game-wide) in-game achievements system. The persistent in-game rewards system lets you activate single-round perks that slightly enhance a facet of your game, and you can even use rewards to play a downloadable course for free.
Master a downloadable course, and it becomes yours to own for free. (You can, of course, buy them — and any other unlockable reward — immediately for real money.)
