You may have recently watched fifty-nine-year-old Tom Watson trying to win The Open only for Stewart Cink to beat him in a play-off that was a truly exhilarating affair. The Tiger Woods series tends to lack the kind of soul and emotion that makes you remember a game for days after you experienced it; EA have always delivered a polished game of golf, but this time can they manage to convey the emotion that has seen millions fall in love with the real life sport?

When you first stroll onto the green, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 certainly has enough options to impress. There is a multitude of modes to select from, many of which can be taken online and it features sixteen of the world's best golf courses, playable across four difficulty levels that cater from Amateur for the casual beginners to Pro Tour for the hardcore, using a range of professional golfers to try to master.

Diving straight into the by now familiar Career mode, where you pit your customised golfer against the best of the world's pros, you're greeted with a wealth of options. You can do so much more than simply decide whether or not to have a goatee! You can change the angle of your eyes, the tint pigmentation of your skin amongst other things, and pretty much everything else you can imagine. Once you're happy that you've designed the best-dressed golfer this side of Augusta, it's time to develop your skills. You are tested on everything from how far you can hit a ball to how close to the hole you can get using the putter, and once your skills have been assessed, Hank Haney (that's Tiger Woods' instructor, by the way) gives you a rating. This forms your starting point but can of course be improved as the season progresses, and the rate at which you develop is based upon how well you play, so your skills can in fact worsen, encouraging you to put in your best efforts every time. One moment you're birdying hole after hole then suddenly you're making sandcastles in a bunker.

The Career mode works fantastically well in honing your skills and you can simulate most rounds if you don't fancy playing them, although you have to play the last! Also, the way the difficult settings work is inspired, as it makes your game more challenging rather than affecting the performance of other players. On amateur setting you can preview shots before you hit them, using a simplified control system with plenty of aids, but on the higher difficulties you lose the ability to preview a shot, the controls become more advanced and those useful tools gradually disappear; try playing one round on amateur and you might get under ten, but switch to the highest difficulty and you're likely to average six to seven shots per hole on your first attempt!

The usual shot types are on offer, such as the Punch (which produces a low-trajectory shot to minimise the effect of the wind), the Chip (an ideal shot if you are too far away to make a useful putt) and the Flop (worth considering when you want to stick the ball onto greens or fly over obstacles). Each shot is easily distinguishable not only in execution but in the way you line up to hit it, so even the most amateur of golfers will be able to differentiate between a full swing or an attempted flop. Like the previous incarnations, an estimate of how far a club can hit a ball is always shown, so there's no mistaking a three wood's capability, although you need to remember which way the wind is blowing; there's nothing more frustrating than taking ten minutes to plan out the shot only for you to realise mid swing that there's a ten mile per hour northerly gust that unfortunately puts your branded Titleist ball bunker-bound!

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 has been implemented with some brand new features, not the least of which is Precision Putting, which introduces you to a more interactive way to sink the perfect putt. After you have lined up the putt, you move the left analogue stick back to dictate how much power you want. Once you're happy with the power, you simply push forward to follow through. However, you need to keep a steady line, as any fluctuations may alter the direction of your ball. Career mode also features a new tournament challenge, where you go up against Tiger Woods et al to see if you can outperform them. Completing and unlocking courses helps boost your My Career statistics, while the all-new Practice Round gives you your own private driving range to tweak your golf swing - very important when used in conjunction with the Club Tuner, as with enough practice you can give your five iron an almost telepathic link with your brain; you will already know where the ball is going to land before you even hit it, and if you put the time and effort in then you really can perfect your bag of clubs. Who needs caddies, anyway?

The most dynamic of the new features is the live tournament and weather. You can line up at the same time as professional golfers who are playing in a real life tournament, receiving real-time updates on how the pros are scoring as well as weather effects from the real world being replicated during the game. So, if Tiger Woods has hit two under par for the first round in gale force winds, you can attempt to better him under the same conditions. This feature doesn't affect the fundamental mechanics of play, but it's a very impressive feat and a big step towards further blending the line between virtual and reality. However, as you play your round, you may find some inconsistencies in the way the course reacts to the weather, too; torrential rain leaves puddles in real life but it's not so much of a problem here. Graphically the courses have been recreated almost perfectly though, so you may want to spend a few hours hitting the ball into the rough just to take it all in.

The online elements of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 are the most in-depth of any golf game to date. If you've played any other of EA's franchises then you're likely aware of the EA Gamernet, a stream of up to date sports statistics and results combined with a multitude of game modes. The new Live Tournaments feature allows you to hit the golf course and compete against other online players for the top of the leaderboards during daily and weekly events, so you can be playing in a single player tournament that you've created one minute and the next you've entered yourself into a live real-time tournament at Bethpage Black, battling against players across the world. If you're even a casual golfing fan then you'll likely end up losing hours of sleep entering these daily competitions!

The problem with the Tiger Woods franchise however is that the basic components haven't really changed much for a while now; the Precision Putting is a nice inclusion, but hardly revolutionary, and while the live events and real-time weather is revolutionary in some regards, the basic game of golf that Tiger Woods plays is very much a refinement of previous iterations. The courses all look amazing, from detailed tree formations to ripples in the water, however the player models and lack of fans at holes makes this version feel a little more soulless than it could be. The commentators don't possess much chemistry either, which again affects how much you get embroiled within the game; it would be beneficial to hear that the commentators have seen an improvement in your driving or have noticed a lack of killer edge on the greens, but instead you almost hear them compliment a shot, only to say that they don't have idea who is topping the leaderboard even though you've been in the lead for the last eight holes. Sometimes you get to the last couple of holes with only a few shots separating several players and for whatever reason you don't quite feel the tension or the urgency in making a birdie; you should be able to hear the fans anticipation and feel the tone in the commentators' voices drop as you get ever so closer to the final hole, but you just don't find yourself fully immersed within the game. Certainly you feel it on the online modes, but it needs to be present during the career modes too.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is an accomplished game in its own right and it's a step up from Tiger Woods 09, but it seems to take a little too much from Tiger Woods himself by replicating his lack of emotion to a certain extent. As a golf simulation it's the best around and if you enjoy golf then it's definitely worth a purchase, and certainly a try even for those who think they won't take to it. The online element and constant challenges will keep you practising your swing for many months to come, but the lack of emotional connection may leave you feeling a little cold after eighteen holes. If you could compare Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 to a real life golfing counterpart then just imagine Tiger Woods but without as many majors already in the bag. There's still plenty of room for improvement in terms of atmosphere, but EA Sports are going in the right direction and Tiger Woods 10 is easily the best of the series to date.

Reviewed by Christopher McNally for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).