Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

"Weak Sauce."

I vaguely remember the last time I hit the links with Tiger, but as far as I can recall it was a very enjoyable experience (well… enjoyable as golf games go).

Key words: ”Vaguely”, “as far as I can recall”, “was”.

A lot of things have changed since then.

For one, my last round of digital golf was on the Xbox. Secondly, I was playing the archaic 2005 iteration of the Tiger Woods.

All I can say is this: If the Wii stands for innovative and revolutionary gameplay, it is definitely right on target. It is also, unfortunately, the reason most of your shots won't be on target.

Gameplay: 3/10

Actual golf
On the most basic level, Tiger Woods is all about playing lots of golf.

Lots and lots of golf.

You could play golf in a PGA tour event, a FedEx tournament, a butt-load of challenge matches, a “hit the ball into the water as many times as possible round”…

The list goes on and on. Sadly, I don't think most people will have the patience to check off much of that list.

Why?

Well… Not to knock the Wii for having a god-awful control set up, but the Wii simply has the worst controls known to mankind. Especially in the case of a sport that demands precision. There are two different controller schemes available, and you can change the difficulty level of one, but there's simply no excuse for having controls that suck this bad.

Swinging should (in theory) be a preeeeeetty easy task, but due to the fact that you're using a Wii remote to play, it's nigh impossible to nail down any sort of consistent swing. To hit the ball straight, you've got to be reeeaaallly dead-on with your shots.

Then there's power to deal with. There's absolutely no way of telling what your power's going to be like (even after taking practice swings that TELL YOU the power you'd be hitting with), and even worse: the game does not understand the concept of percentages very well. If you need to hit a ball 100 yards to the pin and you use a club that gets you 120 yards, chances are you won't be hitting the green. By hitting 85%, you'll almost always hit the bunker lurking in front of the green. In contrast, hitting 100% will take you into the rough (or worse).

THEN (yes, “then” again) you have to deal with draw, fade, and the wind. This stuff makes even less sense than power, as a measly 4 mile-per-hour breeze can send the straightest shots out into the wilderness. Drawing and Fading the ball is horrible and broken… By tilting the Wiimote to the sides, you can theoretically bend the path of the ball.

Theoretically

In actual playing, I've had balls go the exact opposite direction I tried to get it to go! There's even a meter that tells you with an arrow the direction your ball should fly!!! The amount of fade/draw changes wildly from shot to shot, and there's even the rare occasion where the ball goes exactly where you want it to go.

It's frustrating after you add up all these factors that must be taken into account…

Chipping is a joke. Anything less than a 100% shot will just tap your ball an inch.

The putting game, however, isn't half bad though. Reading putts is very intuitive (if inexact), with a grid showing you how the green slopes, and after you get used to it it's not half bad. The power is pretty easy to gauge once you settle into it.

If you are totally lost on a putt, the “Putt Preview” feature lets you see the trajectory of your putt without actually taking the shot. This makes is easy to learn the nuances of the putting early on, and it also helps to drain those ungodly 70 footers. The only bad thing about putting is that sometimes your reads don't do what the green says it's gonna do.

Everything that's not golf

Aside from golf, you can customize a character for use in your golfing career using the “Game Face” mode. It's quite exciting to be able to sculpt your golfer to look like whoever or whatever you want, but don't expect to make anyone who looks decent. The customization options are deep and varied, but the effects they have are so minor it's hard to make someone look like an actual human being.

For example, in this (and the previous) Tiger Woods game, no matter how hard I tried to make my person look anything like me they'd always turn out looking like some asian guy. My dad would get pretty close to himself, but the lack of options makes his character look like a fusion of himself and Tyler Perry. All in all, the game face mode just needs a face lift or something to remedy its tendency to force you into creating something you don't really want.

Speaking of things that aren't usually wanted, the clothing options are a joke. Half the time you find something that looks pretty cool, it winds up looking like your character is a What Not to Wear reject. Most of the shirts are polos… Which wouldn't be a problem except for one glaring flaw: they are ALL tucked in.

ALL

I don't know who wears their shirts tucked in anymore (even for golf!). While you can get around this by getting a T-shirt or something, most of them just don't look that good (or are otherwise unavailable unless you complete an obscene number of events in-game).

In an RPG-like fashion, your golfer will earn experience as you play golf. The experience is divided into several categories, and you level up your stats with it. One problem with this system is that you never know what kind of experience you'll earn on any given shot; if you want to pump up your golfer's putting, you have to putt, and you don't usually do that too often. There is a “general” experience pool, but you gain it in such tiny amounts it almost never helps you out.

The main problem about this game is this:
If you suck, this game will suck for you.

You won't gain as much experience as a good player, which in turn causes you to do very poorly on events (which will get you even closer to nowhere).

Graphics: 5/10
I'm not gonna lie… These are some ugly visuals, even for a Wii game. I know we're working with minimal graphical power here, but I can see almost no improvement from the 2005 game. The rough *does*, admittedly, look better than before. Last time I checked, you don't want to look at the rough. Fairways and greens are just flat surfaces with a green texture slapped on them. It's very bland.

The character models are average at best. Even if they do look okay graphically, they look pretty hideous. Tiger looks like Tiger. That's about it.

I did notice a little framerate lag that seems to be present in many games as of late. It's like a lag that looks smooth (if that makes any sense at all), but it might just be some trick the designers have been using. I honestly can't tell you.

Sound: 9/10

The sound of this game is excellent.

There are two sports announcers: Dave Ferhty (spelling?) and Gary McCord who will make comments about how you play. While the positive comments are just weak, there are some things that made me laugh my ass off.

”I see the ball, and I see the sand, and I think soooooon…. We're going to see the ball IN the sand.”

I have no idea what made that so hilarious to me, but it was great regardless.

There's also a crowd that cheers you on as you play, and I love it. They must really be into golf, because they get INTO it.

”YOU'VE GOT THIS HOLE!!!!!!!”

“I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!”

“IN THE HOLE!!!”

I simply love it! The atmosphere of a lonely golf course is changed dramatically by the crowd! Now if only they'd make actual people present….

There's some good music in the menus, and it's mostly jazz or electronic, but it fits nicely.

Sound effects, on the other hand, are average. Whacking a ball off a tee, hitting from the rough, splashing into the water… it's just meh.

Multiplayer: 1/10

Where's the option to invite people into tournaments with you? What happened??? I hate playing a game that serves no meaningful purpose in my career, and I can vividly remember playing in PGA tour events with my dad and my brother all the time on the 2005 game. Now, unless I'm mistaken, this is no longer available.

To be honest, multiplayer is weak sauce. All because of the removal of the greatest mode ever…

Overall: 4/10

Golf games have been great recently. That is, until they hit the Wii.

There's no way to excuse the lousy controls, the junker create a character mode, the gimped multiplayer….. As such, there's also no way to justify the purchase of this game. Paying for this kind of torture is something you do on the actual golf course.

Final Score: 4/10. Weak in all aspects with the exception of sound

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/08

Game Release: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (US, 08/28/07)