Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Review - Xbox 360

8

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 8
Audio: 6
Multiplayer: 9
Innovation: 7

Introduction

The world of golf. Funny pants, conservatism, and a centuries of established tradition. Tiger Woods PGA Tour has been one of the most popular golfing franchises available on consoles for a while now. With it's detailed courses, accurate gameplay, and the licensing of one of the world's greatest golfers, the series has always been well received by fans. Tiger Woods returns with a few new features, some improvements on last year's edition, and a much broader multiplayer experience.

Gameplay

To play shots during the game, EA has moved away from it's finicky "three button shot" (slider) system in prior games, to a more intuitive swing using the analogue stick. Simply pull back, and swing the stick forward to hit the ball. How much you swing forward, or carry through can greatly effect the power, and pitch of the ball. Moving the stick across the ball during the swing will slice or hook the ball. For the most accurate shots, it is best to play directly down the middle of the ball. It all works very well and feels as natural as anything this side of a Wii controller. For those that wish to go back to the older system, it's still available, allowing you to press once to set power, another to set pitch, and another to set angle. It's trickier.

For beginners, a lot of the fiddling around with correct club selection, choosing the right angle, and hitting the ball with the correct power is taken care of for you. To make it easier, it's a matter of moving a targeting circle to where you wish to hit the ball, and it will tell you in percentage terms how hard you have to hit the ball to land in that area. You then swing by pulling back and forward. If you apply the correct amount of power, that is where the ball lands. Simple. While it does make it easy to play, purists will cringe that it takes out many of the technical aspects that make golf enjoyable. Thankfully, for more advanced players, they may wish to turn these guides off for a more accurate golfing game.

The only downside of the new system in Tiger Woods 09 is that it seems almost too easy to hit a perfect shot. With near every shot ending up where you expect, it's quite hard to play a very bad hole. You could argue that they're Golfing Pros and should be pretty accurate most of the time, so it is one where thoughts may differ.

One of the additions over the last game is the new attributes system. This allows your player a ranking in power, accuracy, short game, and putting. You start off a bit wet behind the ears, but as you improve, each of your scores can improve, improving how you play in each of these areas. At the end of a round, Tiger Wood's coach Hank Haney, can set further mini-challenges to help you improve each of these aspects of your game. What really (continued next page)