|
|
 |
|
|
|
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Review (continued)
 |
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Find all Electronic Arts reviews
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Average Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
View Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Details |
Retail Price: $59.99
Online Sale Price: $56.99
Save $3.00 Today!
* Price is subject to change.
This item qualifies for
Free Super Saver Shipping! |
More User Submitted Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Reviews
Date: 2008-08-28
Best Tiger Woods So Far!
I won't waste your time with a long review, if you want one of those go to gamespot.com and read it.
Here is the sum of it:
Tiger Woods 08 + More Awesomeness = Tiger Woods 09
P.S. I hate James
Date: 2008-08-27
EA Sports, "Its in the cup!"
The first thing you'll notice is the complete graphics overhaul from 08 that completely immerses you a truly Hi-def golfing realm with the most detailed and beautiful courses you'll ever witness designed down to a "Tee" to their real-life counterparts. I was blown away by the 08 to 09 screen-shot comparison, needless to say 09 blows 08 out of the water hazard. And when I say overhaul, EA really went out of their way to make this a Golf Graphical masterpiece and that's not even touching upon Tiger's rep for uncanny ability to produce drug-like addictive game play that can only be subsided with therapy.
As typical to recent Tiger tradition, this game uses the thumb-stick to simulate your swing; pull back and push forward as straight as you can to take a flawless swing. The further and longer you pull back on your backswing, the higher percentage of power will be applied to your shot. If you pull or push slightly to the right or left with your thumb-stick motion, you will end up slicing or hooking your shot in varying degrees depending on how bad you shanked one. Last year's gameplay suffered because it was so finely tailored to your thumb-stick motion that you had to be insanely precise and accurate with your swing in order to have a decent day on the golf course often leaving your blood boiling in frustration. Holes-in-ones and chip-ins were a rare-breed. 09 relaxed a bit and is more forgiving with the thumb-stick swing and accuracy. What I really like this year is that it displays your thumb-stick motion with lines (one for backstroke & one for follow-through) on the ball icon at the bottom left to show you exactly what you are doing right or wrong which allows you to re-adjust if needed for your next shot. Brilliant. This same ball icon also shows you how much extra power you put on your swing (Tap A during you backswing to add power to your shot), the percentage power of your shot (how far you took your backswing) and the spin on your ball (Tap A while ball is flight and a direction).
For the first time since Tiger's debut, you do not have to start from the bottom of the attributes barrel; no more starting at the beginner level and move your way up from scratch. Depending on how well you perform in the intro-training mode with Coach Haney will determine your initial skill level. If you played Tiger before (which I'm sure most of reading this have), your skill should be nowhere near the "Beginner" level. If you are Tiger vet like myself, you should start the game at somewhere in the "Pro" or "Master" level. If you are new to the game, don't panic as this game teaches everything you need to know with Tutorials with Coach Haney and, trust me, leaves plenty of room for improvement. What is also new, and you may dislike or like this feature, is the fact each attribute (four total) and your overall skill level can increase or decrease (*new) depending on how well you played the previous course. In previous versions, you could only improve upon attributes. This year, if you play crappy, expect your attributes, where you executed poorly, to go down. Further to boot, Coach evaluates your performance at end of a course or play and gives you the appropriate attribute training sessions on areas where he feels you need improvement. Choose to train or not, it's up to you -- Coach is just trying to further improve your game. This new skill concept certainly draws this game closer to real golf (even Tiger has bad days) and makes for almost an endless challenge.
The four attribute levels, compressed from previous versions, are: Power, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting. Also, you will have an Average Skill (an average of all four attribute skill levels) rated zero to ten (0-10). If you are smashing drives straight, look for your power and accuracy to increase. If you're shanking drives into the woods, look to botch your power and accuracy skill.
Also for the first time (I love new features), you can tune your clubs. Not happy with your accuracy, increase the sweet spot of the club ultimately giving you more control but sacrificing power or vice versa. You can also tweak loft, spin, fade and draw. Tune club mode puts you on a driving range, allowing you to tune the club in question and then immediately test it out on the range. Too much draw, no problema -- tweak it until that baby is hitting straight. Do you need to counteract your slice with a slight draw - here's the spot to do it. More power less control, yup. Do you want more loft on your short game irons to place the ball dead accurate near the cup, you got it -- tweak and tune your clubs to match your style.
Character creation and customization: One of Tiger's strong suits lie with player progression and customization. Nothing new, with tiger this year as last, you have an infinite number of options to create a character so that your avatar in the game almost identically matches your real life counterpart right down to the mole on your forehead. You can use the infamous Gamernet to upload your picture and face-capture your mug in a 3D rendering onto the game. Further customize your mug and player by inputting style of hair, clothes, height, weight etc. Game play, depending on how you play, will give you credits towards accessories, clubs and clothes to purchase to further develop your character .
Commentary: With a new face comes a new voice, 09 has changed a long tradition by switching commentators. The hilarious mockumentary and savviness offered by McCord and Faherty are out and will certainly be missed. Their refreshing, witty dry humor made you laugh and shone light even if you were having a bad day on the course. I won't deduct too many points though because it seems those guys were around Tiger for a long time and hearing different voices, at least at first, is refreshing but obviously not as humorous. Kelly Tillman and Sam Torrance are up to bat now and although uber-savvy in the world of golf lack in adding any new depth, excitement and humor. All is not lost, they offer great commentary, history, advice and still let you know when you are awful.
"New Courses and Golfers-Test your skills on new courses, including Gary Player Country Club in South Africa, Wentworth Country Club in England, and more, while international stars Se Ri Pak, Darren Clarke, and others join the competition." Amazon.com. Yes Yes and Yes!
Update: After Coach Haney's initial evaluation (one for every attribute: Driving, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting), he will give you an initial rating with a maximum rating of 4 (out of 10). No, you won't be able to be a perfect 10 at the start the game regardless of how well you perform in training. After all, what fun would that be. It leaves room to truly master your game. Play a round in a tournament or take on the Tiger Challenge to increase your attributes. If you've played Tiger before, it won't be long before you reach an average skill of 8 or 9. If you are close to 10, you've mastered and had a flawless streak. The challenge is to be within a certain distance on consistent basis. Even if you are scoring low, if you're not target, your rating will indeed suffer. If your game needs some work, you'll be a 7 and if are a rookie to the series, you be at the 6 or below. The great thing about Tiger, whether new to it or not, it gives plenty of opportunities to improve and more importantly makes you keep coming back for more.
Tiger Challenge has been overhauled and its welcomed change. Instead of a going through a Dynamic Challenge Tree where you select which direction to go in, this time you have to earn enough points to face the boss (PGA Star) of that stage. Each stage as 8+ challenges that you can play to earn points to face the boss. Once the boss of that stage is beaten, you move onto the next level until you ultimately reach Tiger Woods himself. This makes it more linear than the previous versions but it still fun and challenging nonetheless. If anything, Tiger Challenge is a fast way to earn cash to purchase new clothes and equipment.
Date: 2008-08-26
A Well-Balanced Game
I have always been a fan of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series. I've had it for Wii and I've had it for the xbox 360 - a couple of different versions spanning a few years.
This game is one of the most entertaining video games out there, without frying your mind with mind-numbing time-killing violence. You will actually feel refreshed and relaxed at the end of a nice session of this game.
However, this game is not meant for very short play intervals. You need to relax, enjoy the most authentic golfing experience that is possible through a video game, right in the comfort of your home.
The entire golfing experience feels very real here. You do feel those bunkers out there, and you do see those trees blocking your way to that nice little hole. And if you end up (ever) scoring an eagle, you are bound to be smiling for the rest of your game. It's a great game.
I have some comments on the series in general. EA could have chosen to implement a sort of real-world walk around play. The player could have walked around in a simulated 3-D world and then when he is ready to take his shot, it could have switched to the play mode where you start aiming etc. That would have made it more closer to the real golfing experience, because at least some part of the fun is in walking around, exploring the golf course etc. But that would add a completely new dimension to this genre, and probably increase the developing efforts manifold.
The style that this series has, it takes you from your one shot to the next, and that is done in the most authentic fashion. Spare the actual walking to where your ball landed, and this is the most authentic golf game out there.
Over the years, this game has been optimized and crafted to make it more fun, and more authentic - where every level of golfer (frequent players to absolutely never played golf) gets to learn something from this game.
I see every series brings more detail into the game - not just graphics or game play, but the actual factors that go into playing golf. The player skills system seems to be very well done. It has received a big overhaul from the previous years, where your skills can actually go down if you don't demonstrate a particular skill well enough, instead of just monotonously going up. Also, the controls have been improved from last year. Last year had some very sensitive controls. The graphics are also improved from last year. If you actually look at EA's pga tour's 09 blogs (environment devl team), you will know they re-did a lot of classic golf courses to take advantage of some new rendering engine, and the details about improvements they have made - the skies have a big overhaul, and so have the water pools and trees.
The golf courses feel very real. The feel of bunkers is very real and putting needs skill. One thing EA needs to do more is to give more audio control to the user. I would like to just hear nice bird sounds, and maybe ocean sounds etc (depending on the real geography of the course) and cut out any audience sounds. Just as if I was hitting the course on a saturday morning. The sounds are still very well done and graphics are amazingly real. You get to choose equipment as you advance your game, which is fun.
If you play close attention to your playing, vs if you are just playing casually, you will end up scoring better when you were paying attention.
This game has been a balancing act for EA, and they have done an excellent job at it.
I highly recommend it to folk, who like myself like relaxing games. This is a title that is meant for adults as much as it is meant for youngsters.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Reviews Page: 4 of 4 Prev<< 1 2 3 4
|
|
|
|
