Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 review

So another year and another version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour comes out of the labs at EA and another horde of eager gamers go to the shops to buy what is essentially, the same game as last year with a few tweaks and improvements added.

This year though, the improvements are significant, especially on the 360 with Xbox Live and the ability to load your face into the game, more on that in a second.

To anyone unfamiliar, this golf franchise has been running for as long as I can remember and you can choose to play through a tour where you unlock other golfers you play against and new courses as you go, have a quick round in quick play mode, do the Tiger Challenge which sets a series of achievements you must match or better, and some fun mini games.

As always the graphics have improved again with stunning courses and character models, even better is the ability to use their Gameface technology. If you have Xbox live vision you can use the camera to take a front and side profile, tell it where your eyes, nostrils and cheeks area and leave it to render for about 20 minutes.

Come back later and you have a bald head with an uncanny resemblance you can then add hair to and tweak to make it perfect. It really is a bit creepy seeing yourself in the game especially since there’s no option to adjust skin tone and I look like an Indian double of myself with blond hair and blue eyes. Still, a nice try and hopefully they will fix this soon with an update.

Also, with the online GameNet feature you can immediately send a shot or hole you’re especially proud of to the servers for all to see, and then to beat in the challenges section. Multiplayer’s also great with up to 4 players on one hole with zero lag.

Oh, and for retro golf lovers they’ve even put the old 3 click mode back in if you don’t like swinging the club with the analogue stick.

I’m not a golf fan but I do like these games so it gets a very good 8 out of 10.