Reviewed: September 4, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Electronic Arts

Developer
Tiburon

Released: August 28, 2007
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-4

9
9
7
9
8.3

Supported Features:

I’m a huge fan of computer golf games as far back as Jack Nicklaus on the PC, and the LINKS series originally created by Access for the PC then turned over to Microsoft for the Xbox. I’ve even logged 50+ hours with the Outlaw Golf series. If it involves a club and a little ball, I’m usually around somewhere. The Tiger Woods franchise has been around for nearly as long as Tiger himself, and while it seems that the sports legend may have finally peaked in his career, the game that is named after him continues to be polished and refined.

With PGA Tour 08 EA Sports delivers several new features starting with the all-new EA Sports GamerNet, a unique online gameplay element that truly connects you to a world of competition by allowing you to post challenges and participate in other players challenges while earning points and bragging rights.

To make the game more realistic you have the new Shot Confidence that tracks your performance on every hole so you can analyze you golf game and work out the kinks. Also new is the FedEx Cup championship that allows you to play on legendary courses like Westchester Country Club, TPC Boston, Cob Hill, and East Lake. To round out the realism is a cast of 21 legendary golf pros like Annika Sorenstam, Vijay Singh, Christie Kerr, and of course, Tiger Woods, just to name a few.

As always, you can tweak your ball spin in mid-flight and give yourself some extra “oomph” during your backswing by rapidly tapping the LB or A button. Again, it’s not entirely realistic, adding spin to a ball you’ve already hit, but it is a fun addition for a video game and can turn a bad shot into something remarkable if you can tweak the ball just right.

And then you have the new and improved Putt Preview that will track the path of your ball on the green based on slope, elevation, and your putt strength mode. You are given a single peek per stroke so use it wisely and cautiously. I found the line leading me to the hole wasn’t always as accurate as you might think. And if you think this option is “cheating” you can simply avoid using it or play the game on Tour Pro mode where it won’t even be available.

PGA Tour 08 offers up the same presentation we’ve come to expect from the series. You have the Tiger Challenge that puts you up against a tiered ladder of professional golfers and difficult skill challenges. There is also the PGA Tour mode that will create a seasonal calendar of golf games and tournaments all leading up to the FedEx Cup. The first thing you’ll want to do before jumping into any of these modes is create your golfer. In addition to the near-infinite possibilities of the vast character designer, this year PGA Tour 08 allows you to photograph your own face and map it to the in-game golfer.

It’s not exactly a new concept – Rainbow Six and World Tour Poker has already done this, and sadly, they’ve done it better than EA. You’ll need almost studio quality lighting to get a decent face shot and an optional side shot. Then you can go take a nap or read a book while the game spends upwards of 20-30 minutes processing the information, which usually results in something totally unsatisfactory leading to re-shoots and more attempts until you realize you’ve spent 2-3 hours trying to create your face and haven’t even played the game yet – or is that just me? Even when you do get the face map to work it really doesn’t look like you. It only lifts the front of your face off (like the movie Face Off) so you get your eyes and nose and mouth pasted on a CG head. You’ll quickly want to head to the Pro Shop to conceal your deformity with sunglasses and a hat.

Once you have your golfer visually crafted you’ll need to tweak your playing skills and stats by engaging in seven unique challenges that measure your skill and award you points. Sadly, you often end up with some pretty low scores that can make you fairly noncompetitive when you hit the main game modes. At least during your many games, outstanding shots will reward you with bonus points that will slowly boost your stats, even if you don’t win the game. In addition to winning skill points, you’ll also win cash prizes for winning games and also executing excellent shots like long drives, GIR, and pitching close to the cup.

Shot Confidence is a unique new feature that reminds me of a “luck” or “loyalty” variable. Your complete golfing history is tracked by hole, so if you do exceptionally well on a certain hole you get a confidence boost the next time you play, which is supposed to make things easier. It’s an interesting concept that rewards gamers who play the game a lot and actually allows you to form your favorite, or preferred courses.

Multiplayer is functional with little online lag other than having to wait for each of the other golfers to make their shot. Playing 18-holes with three other people online can take as long or longer than playing golf in real life, and when you drag an online game out for more than an hour you’re bound to get dropped connections and aborted games. That’s probably why you’ll find a lot more 9-hole matches and smaller challenges and mini-games being played online.

Mini-games are back in force with favorites like One Ball, Battle Golf, TIGER, driving and putting challenges, and many others. There is a special course all setup and ready for you to create your own challenges and countless hours of multiplayer entertainment, either locally or online.

The biggest addition this year is the new GamerNet system that allows you to create challenges and post them online on the fly while you are playing any of the other modes. If you make a spectacular shot or finish a hole or even a course with a low score you can post those results online and challenge others to beat you. Naturally, everyone else is doing the same so there is a growing library of online user-created content that can be as much fun (and far more stable) than many of the other online modes.

The golfers look amazing, with each pro looking like their real-life counterpart, both facially and in their animations and specific golf swings. There is a huge library of animations for swinging, and positive and negative celebrations, that you can purchase and customize your golfer with as well as countless combinations of clothing and accessories guaranteeing that no two golfers will every look alike. As always, many of these visual upgrades also come with their own stat boosts.

The overall presentation of the game including menus, ESPN ticker, and season calendar works nicely. You’ll enjoy seeing your chosen golfer playing around on the main menu screen. You’ll also get the standard TV-style presentation of the larger matches with commentary and preview fly-bys of each hole.

The sound effects are outstanding with all the sounds you’d expect to hear on the golf course like wind, water, the crowd, an occasional jet flying overhead, and even some location specific birdcalls. I was impressed that the sound designers took the effort to match the species of birds to the region where the course was located. I’ve played a few of these courses in real life and it’s remarkably lifelike.

The Tiger Challenge mode alone will keep you busy for a week or more. Challenges are ranked by bronze, silver, and gold parameters and getting gold can be extremely difficult for some of these events. And winning the FedEx Cup can take days or even weeks depending on how many games you can play in a single day.

Achievement hunters will have considerable challenges ahead of them, as the goals for these points are varied and quite clever. Some are obvious like driving a ball more than 350y, hitting the flag, play all the mini-games, or even create a golfer using the camera and Game Face. Then things get tricky when you are asked to putt without using the preview mode, reach milestone GamerNet scores or post challenges in the various channels. There are 31 achievements in all required for the full 1000 points.

Let’s face it; if you love Tiger Woods PGA Tour then you are going to want to get this game. There are still a few areas that need some improvement like the tedious online gameplay, but for the most part, PGA Tour 08 is a major step forward in making this franchise the best golf game on the Xbox 360.