Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

Every year, Tiger is the game that keeps on giving. In my 22 game collection, Tiger is the one that keeps popping back into my 360 for several reasons. 1) Superb create a player, I even uploaded my pic using GamerNet and the face match was nearly uncanny. My friends comment "Wow, that really does look like your goofy self". 2) Player progression is the key ingredient. You play for hours on end because you want to improve your character by increasing his/her attributes. And not just that, but you use your earnings to buy new clubs, new clothes and accessories all which give improvements to specific attributes (Tiger hat looks awesome plus it increases my Driving and Accuracy). Without player progression, Tiger would be another golf game but Tiger has mastered the art of Player Progression and is the reason you keep coming back to this game. You can go from Scrub to Legend but it will take some serious experience. 3) Golf, oh yea let's not forget the core of the game. Using the thumb-stick to hit the ball has been the greatest thing that has happened to golf and this year's edition is no different. A clean back to forward motion gives your ball a straight hit, slight movement to the left or the right will slice or hook your ball. What's new this year is the ability to set a draw or fade on your ball prior to your swing simply by pressing the RB or LB buttons. I really like this feature as other golf games try to incorporate a "if you swing from left-back to right-front this produce a fade etc" concept. Tiger eliminates the goofy control mechanisms and allows you to pre-determine your fade or draw. You have plenty of things to worry about like hitting the ball straight, using the right club, adjusting for wind, calculating percentages, percentage of swing and putting spin on the ball. Shoo! Sound like a pro because you'll need to be one. Yes, hitting A to get a boost of power on your ball while swinging is still an option. As is putting spin on your ball in any direction while the ball is flight. Your 100 yards from the pin, wind is blowing left to right, you're slightly in the rough and there is a tree right in front of you with high branches, the green is shallow and fast, slight gradient hill facing towards you. Your Iron hits at 140, take 10% off for rough. You could hit a punch shot under the trees but you might fall short of the green. Your only option of going for it could be to fade it around the tree. You opt for that but not too much as the wind will help the fade. Your going slight up hill, so you know you need a little more oomph!. You determine that you need to hit the ball at 80 to 90 percent that means your backswing should not be fully cocked. You line up, take the swing, stop your back-swing just short of full and make contact with the ball making sure to take a full follow through, in your mind the green is fast so you place back-spin on your ball, it hits the front the green rolls fast but slows due to your back spin and crawls inches from the cup. The crowd erupts because they know your shooting for the bird on the final hole of the final round to take the lead and take home the cup. Yes this round will earn you monstrous dough to buy new equipment and clothes, a sponsorship, a trophy, respect and more attributes to highlight the selective areas you have done well on. Welcome to Tiger! and this is just the beginning. 4) Game modes, every game mode and multiplayer is available even including the odd-balls like Bingo, Bango, Bongo (first to the green, closest to the cup and lowest score). Play The Tiger Challenge where you'll face off one on one with real Pros, EA characters and game scenario challenges through a tree to reach tiger. Each event you can earn bronze, silver or gold. A trophy will grant you access to the next event in the tree. Or opt to play on the PGA tour, going through ever major event on every major course until you become a legend 5) Superb fluid graphics, so far the best of the series. Lush, rich, dynamic environmental graphics. Trees blowing in the wind, superb water reflections and ripples, grass detail, shrubs, sand and the whole nine yards. Great player animation as well with a slew of customizations that could make your head hurt. 6) Loads of <br /> <br />New features: <br />1)Draw or Fade, use RB or LB before the shot to pre-determine your fade or draw. You will notice the arch in your shot reflect the fade or draw prior to swinging. <br />2) Putt Preview, see the most likely path of your ball prior to taking a putt. You have the grid and the putt preview this season. Putt preview can be used once per putt. <br />3) Slight more realistic gameplay. Starting off as a no-name in this game is no joke, you'll take you sometime to progress before you kick the habit of shanking your bal. Don't worry though, you'll earn enough experience or attributes to improve your game. And even when you eventually do become a Pro, earning chip-ins and holes in one are more difficult than previous seasons. Earning cred from the very beginning of your create-a-player is definitely an uphill battle that may seem unfair at first because your hitting drives off the tea at the proficiency of a little girl while your matched up against real pros. You may or may not like this aspect of the game but you'll eventually play catch up and when you finally that point of out driving the pros, it'll be well worth it. But getting there, especially early on in your progression, is no cake walk. <br />4) Photo Face. Yes, yes! Upload your photo on GamerNet and EA will do the rest by producing a nearly uncanny depiction of your ugly mug in a beautiful three-dimensional rendition. Match that up with height, weight, facial features, body attributes and you will really like you've earned your place in the PGA. But really your just another geek with a joystick sitting on your couch. <br />5) Shot confidence. Every find yourself writing down on notepads on how well you played certain holes or what you would do differently if you faced the beast again. Well Shot Confidence tracks that all for you, let's you know exactly how well or poorly you played this hole in past, what your confidence level is and hints at what you should do differently.