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"The Jet Gamer" Game Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
10 years ago
A sports game from me? Yeah, don't expect too many of these from me, but it was a cheap PS3 game. =P
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
An EA sports game on the PlayStation 3 is here in the review section. Yeah, this is surprising, but this isn't a football or basketball game that you hear about all the time. This is a golf game. Yeah, I know some of you may be thinking, gold? Bleh. Yeah, some games of this can be very poor and boring, but other golf games can actually be quite fun. Where does this game lie in that area? Let us find out shall we?
Gameplay
Well, this game is exactly what you would expect when you pick it up. It is a game about golf. However, there is a bit more in the game than you might expect. There are a large variety of modes to choose from, besides the typical single player stroke and match play. There is a complete PGA Tour you can play through if wish, and there is also a Tiger Challenge mode where you can make your golfer stronger while completing many difficult challenges to make him better. As I just mentioned as well, while you can play as Tiger Woods as you would expect, and others, the best thing is likely going to be creating your own golfer from scratch and raising him up to compete with all the other pro's in the game. However, that is where it gets a bit tricky. There is a limit on your golfer's potential stat's and the only way to raise them is by completing the boss golfers in the Tiger Challenge area. Until you do that, you can't raise your stat's very high, and you won't do well in the PGA Tour. So, I hope you enjoy these challenges, as it is where you will be spending a large bulk of your time in this game, at least until you can raise your stat potential to around the maximum. However, several of these challenges are very hard, and it does often times seem like the AI gets very very lucky all the time, which can make winning skins matches against them quite difficult. Many times did I end up getting quite mad at some of these AI's as it really did feel like that had an unfair advantage or that they rarely messed up at times. If you can get through this mode though, then comes to the PGA Tour, which is where you go through an entire year of courses and try and become the champion. This is actually fun when you think about it as becoming the champion in golf can be quite challenging. However, the main thing with the PGA Tour mode is that you need to play each course three or four times before you can move to the next course. This means you will be playing many many many rounds of golf if you want to complete this mode. However, there is a simulate it mode, where the AI will play the course in an instant for you, but since you didn't play it, you can't exactly control what results the AI will give you, be they really good or bad. This means it is a judgement call on your part on how many of the courses you play and how many times. For those that don't want to deal with all of this or even the normal modes of the games, you can just click Play Now mode, where you play an 18 hole course as Tiger Woods maxed out stats. If you want some just simple golf, this is the mode for you. So yes, there are plenty of modes for you to enjoy in this game, it can just get a little repetitive after awhile is all to get where you need to eventually get to in the end. If you can get past that though, it's not that bad.
Story
All you are doing is trying to win the PGA Tour in the end. That means there is no story here besides that, so this gets a pass.
Graphics
This game is a bit of a mixture in this area. I've seen many things in this game that look really nice, but I've also seen quite a few questionable things graphics wise as well. The course in this game look wonderful. You really can believe you are on these courses. The surrounding areas look great, and it does look like they paid great attention to detail to what is both on the course and around the course. The golfers themselves look like they were given great attention to detail, even the custom golfers you make yourself. You can tell these two areas had a lot of attention to detail put into them. However, there are several places where I ran into graphical glitches. The audience that is watching you often times looks quite stiff and sometimes lacking in details. Many times I saw people with their feet or legs in the ground, including some of the golfers themselves. I've seen the ball several times when it feel into the water, instead of splashing into the water, it would run into the water and just keep going as if the water wasn't even there. It wasn't like this was a one time thing either. I saw this several times as I was playing the game. Several times as I was trying to aim, the cursor would occasionally glitch all over the place and I would end up having to cancel my view of where the ball would end up, or have to shoot blind as it would be shaking so much all over the place, it would be very hard to aim like this. One of the other things is it wasn't odd for you to occasionally see clipping on the characters when the camera was just the right angle, which would result in you being able to see right through the character themselves. So yeah, don't be surprised when you play this game to see the occasional graphic glitching. It is easy to tell sometimes that some polish was missing on this game, but it isn't terrible. You can tell where the focus went in this game and where it may have been skipped over a little bit.
Sound
The sound in this game is another mixed bad really. The sounds of the environment as you are playing a round is quite realistic. You can hear the sounds of the birds chirping in the nearby trees. You can hear the sounds of people as they are watching you play, and you can even hear the sounds of an airplane as it is flying over head, and it sounds just like you would imagine. The sounds of the announcers as you are playing is actually quite good as well and pretty clear. They could have a larger amount of phrases they could say though, so you will be hearing them saying similar lines over and over again. Also, they do tend to give away how the ball will end up right after you hit the ball, and before it actually lands where they say. This can be both good or annoying depending on if you want to know right away or not how it will land after you shoot. Yet, really my main complaint about this game is the severe lack of music. There is music in the game, but you would think you could hear at least some music while you are playing the holes in the game. You only hear music when in the menu's and in practice or training mode. When in normal modes, all you hear are the environmental sounds and the announcers talking. It would be nice if you could have some music to lighten up the mood and not have the game be so quiet all the time. You can turn the volume way down on this game and you really won't miss much, unless you want to hear the announcers. I know some players may want it to be quite while you are playing golf, but I've played other golf games with music as you are playing and it didn't distract me at all. Maybe it is just me, but I would have really liked this inclusion as it is too quiet without it.
Control
Alright, the controls of a golf game. This is something that has to be pretty good in a golf game as it is so important when aiming where you want this ball to go as you play. And honestly, I'm a bit mixed on the controls, but there are saving graces as well. Luckily, there are two types of shooting controls as you are hitting the ball. You can use the standard controls of using the left analog stick from the back to shoot the ball, or you can use the old school three click method where you click to start, click again to set your power, and click again when the bar is on the way back to control how straight your shot is. Honestly, the three click method is way easier and more reliable than the analog stick method in my opinion. The analog stick method is honestly more of a blind shot at how straight and how strong your shots will be. You can be off just a little bit when you push forward and the ball will shoot way off to the left or right because you didn't hit it forward just right. The same goes with the power, since if you don't do it in one fluid motion you might end up not putting the power you want, or may end up going way over what you want in terms of power. There is really no way to tell. A lot of this is fixed with the three button method, but there does come some new problems as well. The three button method allows you to more precisely tell how much power you want to give and how straight or crooked you may want your shot to be. However, the main problem with it is the speed at which the cursor sometimes moves. Sometimes that cursor is just way too fast for what you are trying to do. This is especially so if you go for a power shot. If you land in the power section after the second click, the cursor flies back to the left at such a high speed, that it is really just a shot in the dark if you hit the ball straight at all. This can many many times result in strong shots that go wild and out of bounds. So yes, I honestly prefer the three click method over the analog stick method, but that is just me. I'm just glad there is an alternative if you don't like one or the other, but each one still has its small flaws, especially the analog stick method.
Replay Value
Being a golf game, and one with so many modes, there is quite a nice level of replayability. You can play more single player matches. You can replay the PGA Tour, or you could create another golfer. There is such a high number of possibilities that you can do in this game, that you don't always have to play the same game over and over again, and each time you do play the game it isn't likely going to be the same either. Each game is going to be its own unique experience. However, really my only thing that would lower my willingness to come back to this game is in the competitions against AI's is the unfair AI's on some of the golfers. Some of these golfers are just so good and perfect at times, that really it is all you can do to just match them as they get good shot after good shot. This can lead to frustration as I mentioned before, which can really make you want to turn this game off or yell a little bit. While it isn't a game breaking frustration of course, and you don't have to play with other AI's, it can be bothersome in the modes where you do play against them. I would recommend either the Quick play option with Tiger Woods, or playing the PGA Tour a lot after your character is maxed out as that is on your own as well. Other than the somewhat unfair at times AI, I don't see what would stop golf lovers from coming back for more on this game.
Overall, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 isn't the best golf game in the world, but isn't the worst either. It is a slightly above average golf game that anyone who enjoys golf games or golf simulations would enjoy I feel. However, you can definitely tell that some polish was needed on the graphics of this game and that the lack of music during gameplay did sort of affect my own opinion of this game. While this isn't the worst gold game in the world, I would give it and its other counterparts another try if I ran into other versions of them at some point. For a dollar, which is how much I found this game for, I would recommend picking this game up actually and at least giving it a try if you even have a little interest in golf.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 a six point five out of ten.
Gameplay: 7
Story: N.A.
Graphics: 5
Sound: 6
Control: 7
Replay Value: 8
Overall: 6.5
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
An EA sports game on the PlayStation 3 is here in the review section. Yeah, this is surprising, but this isn't a football or basketball game that you hear about all the time. This is a golf game. Yeah, I know some of you may be thinking, gold? Bleh. Yeah, some games of this can be very poor and boring, but other golf games can actually be quite fun. Where does this game lie in that area? Let us find out shall we?
Gameplay
Well, this game is exactly what you would expect when you pick it up. It is a game about golf. However, there is a bit more in the game than you might expect. There are a large variety of modes to choose from, besides the typical single player stroke and match play. There is a complete PGA Tour you can play through if wish, and there is also a Tiger Challenge mode where you can make your golfer stronger while completing many difficult challenges to make him better. As I just mentioned as well, while you can play as Tiger Woods as you would expect, and others, the best thing is likely going to be creating your own golfer from scratch and raising him up to compete with all the other pro's in the game. However, that is where it gets a bit tricky. There is a limit on your golfer's potential stat's and the only way to raise them is by completing the boss golfers in the Tiger Challenge area. Until you do that, you can't raise your stat's very high, and you won't do well in the PGA Tour. So, I hope you enjoy these challenges, as it is where you will be spending a large bulk of your time in this game, at least until you can raise your stat potential to around the maximum. However, several of these challenges are very hard, and it does often times seem like the AI gets very very lucky all the time, which can make winning skins matches against them quite difficult. Many times did I end up getting quite mad at some of these AI's as it really did feel like that had an unfair advantage or that they rarely messed up at times. If you can get through this mode though, then comes to the PGA Tour, which is where you go through an entire year of courses and try and become the champion. This is actually fun when you think about it as becoming the champion in golf can be quite challenging. However, the main thing with the PGA Tour mode is that you need to play each course three or four times before you can move to the next course. This means you will be playing many many many rounds of golf if you want to complete this mode. However, there is a simulate it mode, where the AI will play the course in an instant for you, but since you didn't play it, you can't exactly control what results the AI will give you, be they really good or bad. This means it is a judgement call on your part on how many of the courses you play and how many times. For those that don't want to deal with all of this or even the normal modes of the games, you can just click Play Now mode, where you play an 18 hole course as Tiger Woods maxed out stats. If you want some just simple golf, this is the mode for you. So yes, there are plenty of modes for you to enjoy in this game, it can just get a little repetitive after awhile is all to get where you need to eventually get to in the end. If you can get past that though, it's not that bad.
Story
All you are doing is trying to win the PGA Tour in the end. That means there is no story here besides that, so this gets a pass.
Graphics
This game is a bit of a mixture in this area. I've seen many things in this game that look really nice, but I've also seen quite a few questionable things graphics wise as well. The course in this game look wonderful. You really can believe you are on these courses. The surrounding areas look great, and it does look like they paid great attention to detail to what is both on the course and around the course. The golfers themselves look like they were given great attention to detail, even the custom golfers you make yourself. You can tell these two areas had a lot of attention to detail put into them. However, there are several places where I ran into graphical glitches. The audience that is watching you often times looks quite stiff and sometimes lacking in details. Many times I saw people with their feet or legs in the ground, including some of the golfers themselves. I've seen the ball several times when it feel into the water, instead of splashing into the water, it would run into the water and just keep going as if the water wasn't even there. It wasn't like this was a one time thing either. I saw this several times as I was playing the game. Several times as I was trying to aim, the cursor would occasionally glitch all over the place and I would end up having to cancel my view of where the ball would end up, or have to shoot blind as it would be shaking so much all over the place, it would be very hard to aim like this. One of the other things is it wasn't odd for you to occasionally see clipping on the characters when the camera was just the right angle, which would result in you being able to see right through the character themselves. So yeah, don't be surprised when you play this game to see the occasional graphic glitching. It is easy to tell sometimes that some polish was missing on this game, but it isn't terrible. You can tell where the focus went in this game and where it may have been skipped over a little bit.
Sound
The sound in this game is another mixed bad really. The sounds of the environment as you are playing a round is quite realistic. You can hear the sounds of the birds chirping in the nearby trees. You can hear the sounds of people as they are watching you play, and you can even hear the sounds of an airplane as it is flying over head, and it sounds just like you would imagine. The sounds of the announcers as you are playing is actually quite good as well and pretty clear. They could have a larger amount of phrases they could say though, so you will be hearing them saying similar lines over and over again. Also, they do tend to give away how the ball will end up right after you hit the ball, and before it actually lands where they say. This can be both good or annoying depending on if you want to know right away or not how it will land after you shoot. Yet, really my main complaint about this game is the severe lack of music. There is music in the game, but you would think you could hear at least some music while you are playing the holes in the game. You only hear music when in the menu's and in practice or training mode. When in normal modes, all you hear are the environmental sounds and the announcers talking. It would be nice if you could have some music to lighten up the mood and not have the game be so quiet all the time. You can turn the volume way down on this game and you really won't miss much, unless you want to hear the announcers. I know some players may want it to be quite while you are playing golf, but I've played other golf games with music as you are playing and it didn't distract me at all. Maybe it is just me, but I would have really liked this inclusion as it is too quiet without it.
Control
Alright, the controls of a golf game. This is something that has to be pretty good in a golf game as it is so important when aiming where you want this ball to go as you play. And honestly, I'm a bit mixed on the controls, but there are saving graces as well. Luckily, there are two types of shooting controls as you are hitting the ball. You can use the standard controls of using the left analog stick from the back to shoot the ball, or you can use the old school three click method where you click to start, click again to set your power, and click again when the bar is on the way back to control how straight your shot is. Honestly, the three click method is way easier and more reliable than the analog stick method in my opinion. The analog stick method is honestly more of a blind shot at how straight and how strong your shots will be. You can be off just a little bit when you push forward and the ball will shoot way off to the left or right because you didn't hit it forward just right. The same goes with the power, since if you don't do it in one fluid motion you might end up not putting the power you want, or may end up going way over what you want in terms of power. There is really no way to tell. A lot of this is fixed with the three button method, but there does come some new problems as well. The three button method allows you to more precisely tell how much power you want to give and how straight or crooked you may want your shot to be. However, the main problem with it is the speed at which the cursor sometimes moves. Sometimes that cursor is just way too fast for what you are trying to do. This is especially so if you go for a power shot. If you land in the power section after the second click, the cursor flies back to the left at such a high speed, that it is really just a shot in the dark if you hit the ball straight at all. This can many many times result in strong shots that go wild and out of bounds. So yes, I honestly prefer the three click method over the analog stick method, but that is just me. I'm just glad there is an alternative if you don't like one or the other, but each one still has its small flaws, especially the analog stick method.
Replay Value
Being a golf game, and one with so many modes, there is quite a nice level of replayability. You can play more single player matches. You can replay the PGA Tour, or you could create another golfer. There is such a high number of possibilities that you can do in this game, that you don't always have to play the same game over and over again, and each time you do play the game it isn't likely going to be the same either. Each game is going to be its own unique experience. However, really my only thing that would lower my willingness to come back to this game is in the competitions against AI's is the unfair AI's on some of the golfers. Some of these golfers are just so good and perfect at times, that really it is all you can do to just match them as they get good shot after good shot. This can lead to frustration as I mentioned before, which can really make you want to turn this game off or yell a little bit. While it isn't a game breaking frustration of course, and you don't have to play with other AI's, it can be bothersome in the modes where you do play against them. I would recommend either the Quick play option with Tiger Woods, or playing the PGA Tour a lot after your character is maxed out as that is on your own as well. Other than the somewhat unfair at times AI, I don't see what would stop golf lovers from coming back for more on this game.
Overall, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 isn't the best golf game in the world, but isn't the worst either. It is a slightly above average golf game that anyone who enjoys golf games or golf simulations would enjoy I feel. However, you can definitely tell that some polish was needed on the graphics of this game and that the lack of music during gameplay did sort of affect my own opinion of this game. While this isn't the worst gold game in the world, I would give it and its other counterparts another try if I ran into other versions of them at some point. For a dollar, which is how much I found this game for, I would recommend picking this game up actually and at least giving it a try if you even have a little interest in golf.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 a six point five out of ten.
Gameplay: 7
Story: N.A.
Graphics: 5
Sound: 6
Control: 7
Replay Value: 8
Overall: 6.5
MTH001
~mth001
Should be an OK game for someone that happens to enjoy golf from time to time, and is a fan of this Tiger Woods person.
