Tiger is back and this time he comes with tons of new tricks up his leaves, but is it enough for an Eagle or can it even make a Double Bogey? Find out in our full review.
I will be the first to admit that I am not the biggest golfing fan in the world, but I do play a Tiger Woods game from time to time. Since Tiger’s entry into the next-generation, the series has been lacking until now. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is truly the next-generation of golfing games. It has enough features, gameplay tweaks, and presentation changes to make it feel like Tiger that it should have been since it first came to Xbox 360. That is thanks largely in part to the new team based in Florida, many of which worked on the older golf series Outlaw Golf. It has more robust online features and is more difficult making it a rewarding experience. Still, it isn’t without its faults, and a lot of old that needs to be changed still makes it way in.
When reviewing this game it was difficult in deciding how to review it, especially because this year it relies so much on Xbox Live. If you aren’t on Live yet then you will want to get it for this year, otherwise half of what makes the 2008 edition so great won’t matter to you. This year the game seems to be tailored for the Xbox 360, despite being a multi-platform title, a rarity, especially for an EA title. It is noticeable from the start thanks to the fact that you can look at Achievements from the start of the game. The achievements range from the easy (making a golf, spend $5k in the Pro Shop, beat one of the earlier challenges), to the more difficult (hit a hole in one, beat an entire series of challenges).
A great new feature that seems to be tailored towards 360 gamers is the Photo Game Face. At it’s core it is just like the previous year’s Game Face; make your own golfer with lots of highly customizable options. This year however you can choose to add a front and a side picture to the game via your Xbox Live camera, or a picture of yourself from you own came that you upload to EA’s servers. Tiger’s photo game face option is phenomenal, and it is such a compelling feature that even my fiancé got into the fun. Basically you take your pictures, with at least one front, line up points that the game maps out for you to your face, and start it up. After twenty minutes or so you should have your face mapped onto a golfer, but results will vary. It is definitely better than anything you will ever see in games such as Rainbow Six: Vegas and it would be a crime if something like Photo Game Face didn’t show up into other games. Still, despite taking your own high quality pictures is supposed to be better, I have had better luck with low quality Xbox Live vision camera. I am not sure if this is because of EA’s servers or if it is the kinds of pictures I am taking, but you may also get some strange results, so while it is a huge improvement over last year, there is still plenty that can be tweaked.
On the online side of things the game gets a big boost thanks to Gamernet. Gamernet is so well done that it adds a new layer of playability that feels more organic than a pre-made program. So lets say you tee off, the ball hits the pole, and lands into the hole. You can go into the pause menu, and decide to save the clip either as a Gamernet challenge or a video clip. If you save it as a video clip you will be able to view it again in the game or upload it to EA’s servers. When you upload it, it does give you the option of saving the clip yourself, but the file format is weird and chances are you won’t be able to upload it to your own personal sites like YouTube or MySpace, but hopefully they iron those problems out. If you save it as a challenge you can then opt to post the challenge, setting the rules for it depending on the kind of shot it was, and then whoever tries the challenge has to meet the criteria of that challenge. You can even post an up to 18 hole game for someone to beat. When you go into the challenge you can preview, but in the longer challenges such as the 18 hole showdown you see the player that post it golfing as well, showing exactly what they did when they posted the challenge as if though they were playing with you right there. It can get to be addictive and time consuming trying to top challenges, and you are rewarded double points if you are able to beat a challenge before anyone else. You also get points for challenges you posted, and depending on how many people do the challenge or how popular it is depends on how many points you receive. Here is where it gets interesting though; imagine in the future being able to play against Tiger’s real life games, stroke by stroke. It really leaves room for innovation in how the Gamernet will evolve. My only real gripe with it, is you can be somewhat limited to the terms of each challenge and you can’t manually customize the challenges, instead the game gives you some preset options that are determined depending on the kind of stroke, hole, or game you played. The rest of the online play as a whole isn’t bad; you still have the ESPN ticker on the bottom, and ESPN updates every twenty minutes like in many other EA Sports titles. Online play overall is smoother, and more balanced between the users and allows for up to four people.
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