Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

Sep 4, 2007

If it's fall, it must be Tiger season. This year's game drops a little bit earlier than past versions, but I don't think many golf fans are going to complain. EA Sports' Tiger Woods 08 takes all that was good about last year's PS3 debut and does some more fine-tuning.

Like the Madden titles, the Tiger Woods games aren't about reinventing themselves. Because both franchises have little in the way of direct competition, there's very little incentive -- or need -- to do a complete overhaul. The evolution of both series is a slow one, with new features added here and there and old features slowly phased out. This year's game offers a few new features that -- again -- don't markedly change the Tiger Woods experience, but do subtly affect it in one way or another.

One of the big new features that EA is touting this year is the Photo Game Face feature. I've done the "put your face in the game" thing in Sony's MLB games for a few years and, at best, I've come out like a patchwork Frankenstein's monster-looking thing. I wasn't expecting much, but even using the last-gen EyeToy, I was blown away by what the game created for me. After uploading your pics, you synch up some on-screen cursors to your eyes, ears, nose, etc. And then you wait. It's not a quick process. If you're just using one picture, it takes about ten minutes. If you're using both a straight shot and a profile, it can take up to twenty. It's worth the wait. The career mode took on a new meaning when it was literally me that was doing the golfing.

The feature isn't without its bugs. If you don't have a USB camera -- and that doesn't mean a digital camera with a USB jack -- you need to upload pictures to the Tiger Woods site. Unfortunately, the feature was more popular that EA expected and has overwhelmed its system. I was unable to log on and had to settle for the lower-res EyeToy pics over my hi-res camera shots.

The other big new feature that EA is banking on is GamerNet. In addition to the standard way to take the game online -- and there's no shortage of them -- GamerNet attempts to create an online community of virtual golfers. Log-in and you can check out the best drives, longest putts, and other assorted saved moments. You can then try to outdo them. In many ways, it comes across as just a fancy version of a challenge mode. You try to sink a 45-foot putt or reach the green with a monster drive, but eventually, you'll get sucked into what the mode is all about -- trying to hit spectators. You can upload your "greatest" moments so they can be viewed by all. Think of it as being like a very interactive version of YouTube. In this case, your job is to drill some poor guy in the nads with your fairway shot. I'm guessing the GamerNet will evolve as gamers discover more uses for it.

On the course, things have also gotten some tweaking. One of the more major gameplay additions is the revival of the three-click swing. I must be getting old, because the manual describes it as an option to "the classic analog swing." It seems like just yesterday that things were the other way around. In any event, having the choice of a three-click swing -- called up by simply clicking on the right stick -- adds a lot to things. I found the analog swing a bit looser this year than last, so there were times I switched over to a three-click swing when I really needed to nail a shot.

And that brings us to the new way that confidence affects your playing. Just as in the real game, your confidence level is constantly shifting. Nail a strong drive and you feel good about yourself. Slice it and you're convinced you've lost your game. Thus, your previous play will affect how well your player does. On-screen, your confidence is reflected by the size of your aiming circle. The less confident you are the larger the circle and the less precise your shot will be. And, coolly, confidence isn't just based on your last few shots. The game remembers how you've played on certain courses and holes, so even if you've been in the zone, if you come to a hole that has historically given you trouble, your confidence will wane.

The game also tries to ease putting woes with the inclusion of a putt preview mode. Here, after you've read the green and aimed your shot, you can slip into the preview mode to view the projected route of your ball. You only get one look per putt, so if it's way off, you're left to figure out things on your own. It's not a great feature, but it's much better than the preview mode in the PS2 and Wii versions. There you had a timed bar that let you take as many practice putts as you could before the time expired.

Another new addition in the career mode is the FedExCup. It's one word with three capital letters and the PGA is banking that fans will find it the greatest thing to happen to the sport since the invention of plaid knickers. Essentially, the PGA swiped a page from NASCAR and decided to create a playoff series of its own. You won't see Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh trading paint as they try to go three-wide on the eighth fairway at the Deutsche Bank Classic, but the PGA is hoping this four-tournament series will do for golf what the Race for the Cup playoff did for stock car racing.

You can earn the right to take part in the playoff by starting in January and doing well enough to be one of the top 144 players who qualify for the first round. (Only 120 qualify for the second round, 70 for the third, and only the top 30 for the final round.) You can also just jump into the thing from the career mode menu screen.

Without doing a whole lot to change the way the game works, development has added some interesting things into the mix in Tiger Woods 08. The Photo Game face, though still buggy, will flat-out blow you away, but EA's GamerNet is still a work in progress. On the links, the ability to use a three-click-swing is cool, as is the game's added focus on player confidence and past track record. Just like in real life, Tiger continues to impress.