An enjoyable golf simulation from EA
The menu consists of usual buttons. Play Now, Game Modes, Resumé, Play Online, EA Sports Game Face, Credits and Options.
Game Modes gets you to a menu that lets you select which mode you will play. Tiger Challenge is an unique mode, that gives you the chance to beat the worlds best golfers one-by-one, and eventually beat Tiger Woods himself. PGA Tour is the career mode, and its the most important and addictive mode in the game. I will explain it later. FedExCup gives you the instant opportunity to compete in the playoffs. Custom Game lets you play golf in your selected golf course, with your rules. In Practice mode you can play in which golf course you want, you can select which hole you are playing and you can also select your position in the field. In Resumé you can find your accomplishments to date, you can see your trophy balls, trophies, statistics, every ones stats, their money ranking etc. Heaven for statistic lovers.
You can play the game online via Internet or LAN.
EA Sports Game Face is another cool feature. You can set up your characters appearance and attributes from there. When you go to the attributes screen dont be shocked - Rome wasnt built in one day. You have to get experience points by playing in PGA Tour mode. You can change everything on your golfer, from the size of his bulk to his scar near his mouth.
PGA Tour is the most important part of the game. First you select your course, it’s important as it will host nearly all first season games you play, and it determines the travel costs. Yeah, you have a wallet in this game. You start with 10.000$ cash, and try to keep it up. I didnt win my first three games. I also couldnt win Stableford game as I didnt know about the rules. You win money by winning the games and also you get money from side-games. If you make the longest drive in a hole, you will get a small bonus. But if you are playing with some wealthy people, you can win 3.000$ from a game, which has a winning prize of 500$.
You start as a person who doesnt really have any interest in golfing, until your friend wants to play golf with you. You start as an Hack. By the way, the Hack season is VERY boring, if you cant manage to have a scoring average below 82. That is a requirement to compete in the Hack tournament. It took me three seasons to get there. If you manage to qualify in first season you are lucky, but if you cant you can throw the game.
The graphics arent next-gen. They are not bad, but they arent also a masterpiece. When you play in a sunny weather in a golf course, you can find yourself wanting to make barbeque. Environment graphics are good.
The sound effects are nothing special, the soundtrack is OK, the commentators are a bit boring.
Also there are some technical issues, I can run the game on max. settings with x1600 Pro, 1GB RAM and Pentium IV 3.0 GhZ. But in some computers, the game doesn’t work properly with the mouse. I experienced it too, but in my laptop it worked brilliantly. Of course, I didnt play it with the touchpad.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is a good golf game, but sometimes you can just get incredibly furious at it. Its not a game that you can play continuously for 10 hours, but it will keep you in front of the screen for some time. Finally, keep in notice that this is my first ever Tiger Woods game, and I saw on forums that people are saying its the same game of 2007.