Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Xbox 360, 2007)

The Good:
More courses and golfers than last year; Game face is a lot of fun, when it works; New draw and fade mechanic works well;


The Bad:
Analog swing is too touchy; Many features don't work well, if at all; Doesn't play as well as last year


The Tiger Woods series has long stood atop the charts as the best-selling golf franchise year in and year out. There's typically very little to distinguish one year's version from the next, but the games have always played well, and, judging by the sales numbers, people have been happy with the incremental upgrades. But even those expecting minimal improvements are likely to be disappointed with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08. There are some new features, but many of them don't work. Also, there are a fair amount of frustrating bugs that give the game a rushed feel. Even the game's most noteworthy feature, the analog swing, doesn't work as well as in previous years.

TW 08's game modes are almost exactly the same as last year's. New to the PS3 and 360 is bingo, bango, bongo, a head-to-head mode where you are awarded "bingo" for being the first on the green, "bango" for being the closest to the pin when you reach the green, and "bongo" for having the best score. It's OK, but as the lone new play mode it's underwhelming. Online play is largely unchanged--even the lag issues and glitches are back for another go. Career mode hasn't seen a whole lot of change, but what is different is better. You can now choose how long you want standard and major tournaments to be, which is nice for anyone who doesn't want to go through four rounds on the same course for one tournament. Thanks to the addition of Westchester, TPC Boston, Cog Hill, and East Lake, all FedEx Cup courses are in the game. Throw in Harbour Town and there are now 16 courses--a healthy amount, but still far fewer than in the last-gen versions. There are 21 professional golfers in the game.
Once again you start your career as either a rookie Tiger Woods or a created golfer with limited skills. You can improve your skills a little by performing well in events, but you'll want to take the skills challenges, which are largely unchanged, to improve them quickly. The idea is to simulate a golfer getting better by practicing and gaining experience, but it feels artificial thanks to the level caps, which are the same for each skill and go up only when you beat certain tasks in the Tiger challenge. Not only do all golfers end up playing the same (because you tend to level their skills up evenly), but the process is cumbersome--especially if you play the series every year. Because your golfer will stink to start off, you won't stand a chance at winning a tournament event. Making you play with such a lousy golfer feels like a contrived, last-ditch effort to make the game challenging. Speaking of artificial challenges, the CPU's tendency to go from making miracle shots to blowing absurdly short putts depending on how close the match is seems more pronounced than ever.

People who worry about yearly releases diluting the quality of games have plenty of ammo in the form of Tiger Woods 08. The changes to the gameplay are minimal, and some of them make the game worse. There are only five new courses, and many new features don't feel fleshed out, don't work well, or flat-out don't work.

So you want to play some golf on your XBox360? Then I hope you don't want to play online or access any online options from easports.com The access to any part of the servers is completely severed and the ea forums is a joke in giving support. Ultimately, if you want to play online, do NOT buy this product. You'll have to buy something more recent and hope it lasts more than one year online thanks to EA Sports' nature of screwing their customers.

So let's say that's all well and good for you. You like single player action anyway. Sadly the controls on '08 are not very forgiving. First off, the swing action is based on the joystick. That would be great, however if you're even minutely off from center of going down then up on the hit, the ball will fly off in the given direction. For someone that's played games for 20 years now, I've never had so much difficulty controlling such a simple task. On occasion I've had the success of hitting straight, and the game treats it like a one in a million hit appropriately, but the excitement wears off very quickly when you have your next hit land far to the left or right of where you wanted to go because your thumb slipped a little.

But then let's say the controls work well for you. Good, you're awesome. Then with any luck you can have a good run on the leaderboard. Given, even on easy settings the board dos incredibly well, and given if you dare play it on harder you better land eagles and birdies on every hole or you'll fall behind. The nature of balancing the AI in this game is similar to Need for Speed games: You do bad, you'll fall behind, if you do good, you'll stay ahead for a little bit, then fall way behind anyway.

Really, I can't suggest this game at all. It is fun to think about and the last title I played of TW (I believe was '03 on the XBox) was fun to unlock equipment, clothes, and challenges. It's too bad this game has such finicky controls and the feeling of success drains away so fast as you dip down the rankings. That's not even starting to get into how infuriating it is that you can't access any online play, use the Game Face feature, or even get sports news while playing like the title suggests it does.

Do yourself a favor and either go with a different title or get laughed at for buying the newest version of the same game just to enjoy online activities.

A lot of complaints about this game - hard to hit it straight - only one look at your put - takes forever to build your character, etc. Is Tiger Woods 2008 for XBox 360 hard - YES - is golf in real life hard? Indeed it is. While I really enjoyed 2007 and getting Eagles and Birdies on every hole, 2008 is designed to be harder. A new EA development team was even brought in to assure it. Personally, I like 2008. Much better graphics, features. I have not used the new "my face" feature that allows you to import your image and create a player - probably won't use it. Have yet to go on-line - but hear the EA server has just as many issues as it did with '07 - lock-ups, lags, etc. I suggest starting off-line and build your character up via the Tiger Challenge mode - it's some quick cash to improve your equipment and thereby your attributes. Do the skills challenges. Then, move to PGA Tour - but be ready - while I won my first tourney - it took 11 birdies to do so in the final round. You'll have to be on your game - and it is really easy to triple or worse - but you can win early on. Overall, a B+, and the bottom-line is - you'd better buy it sooner than later, because TW 2007 on-line will not be around too much longer. Look for 2009 to be great - they usually get it right every other year.

I played 04 through 06, and found them to be a breeze. On 05 i routinely posted scores of 20 under in a round. In 06 i turned off the powerboost and spin control to make it more challenging. NOT THIS TIME! Not only can i not pimp all over the game like in previous versions, I have trouble playing on "hard" at all! I couldn't win anything on hard, so i had to level it down to normal just to compete. I was shocked! The controls are way less forgiving, the courses are tougher, and the scores are much more realistic. I'm just happy they made the competition realistic too. Tiger doesnt score birdie on EVERY HOLE like in the old games.

I liked the level up system in this version. Instead of just buying your skills with cash, you have to practice in mini-games to sure up your game. And i REALLY like that you can level up just from playing. If you bomb it down the fairway, your power stats go up. If you sink a put from 45 feet, your putting goes up, etc.

Overall I'm pretty happy, but not terribly impressed with the graphics. Fairly lackluster for a 360 game, but thats my only real complaint. Its a great addition to the series, and worth buying.

The TW08 brings new features to the game that are very nice. The ability to upload your phote to make your own golfer look just like you is nice....if you want everyone to know what you look like that is. However, it seems that as soon as they get the gameplay to where it is great, they go and change it again. This time it appears that the gameplay is being taken out, in an effort to make the game more difficult, and it is all based on timing now. I think the creators are making the game so hard, that many are going back to the TW07 game to play instead. Great graphics, more courses, and really an overall good job....just don't trade in your 07 yet.