Tiger woods PGA Tour 09
Reviewed on the Xbox 360.
Also available for the PS3 and Wii.
Tiger Woods may be sidelined with torn ligaments in his knee but his coach, Hank Haney has made the transition to virtual golf coach. Unfortunately it hasn’t panned out as well as EA had originally hoped.
As soon as the game loads you are greeted by Tiger Wood’s own coach, Hank Haney. He puts your virtual golfer through the basics: Power, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting. After every tutorial, he will assess your game by reviewing your results from the challenges. The idea of having a personal golf coach to assess your game is something all golfers want, but poor acting and bad voiceovers turn this great idea into something you will want to avoid. Hank seems only to be interested in showing you your bad shots from the previous round and making you practice them. Sometimes you hit a great shot and get an unlucky bounce. There’s no need to sweat over that!
The player creation tool is as deep and extremely detailed as previous year’s additions. The pro shop allows you to customize your character by adding hats, watches, sunglasses, gloves and the most important feature of any pro shop, new clubs.
After creating your character and pimping him or her out in the latest golf clothing it’s time to hit the links. Head on over to the Tiger challenges. This is the deepest part of the game where there are 9 challenges followed by either a 9 hole or 18 match play event against PGA Tour Pros. After this, you can finally challenge Tiger Woods. There are various challenges ranging from putting to 1 ball. When you think you have your skills up to par to take on the PGA tour, you’ll be greeted by 4 major championships and 16 regular tour stops featuring new courses like Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Gary Player Country Club, Sheshan International Golf Club, the west course at Wentworth, and Wolf Creek Golf Club.
One of the best features you’ll see in Tiger Woods 09 is the real-time feedback meter on the lower left hand portion of your screen. What this does is allow you to see how straight or crooked you flicked your analog stick. If you’re still having trouble hitting the ball straight, why not tune your clubs? This new feature allows you to adjust the club’s sweet spot as big or as little as you want, set the loft of the club or even set it to have a fade or a draw. One of my favourite new features is the dynamic feedback system. Your character’s attributes now change based on how well or how bad you’ve played. Play well and watch your attributes increase, play poorly and watch them decrease.
The single biggest improvement in Tiger woods 09 over previous year’s additions is the online Simultaneous Play. Now all 4 players can tee off at the same time – no more waiting for your playing partners to hit their shots. This has significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to complete a round.
Closing Comments
Great visuals plus a handful of new courses and golfers will please any golfer. If you’re a Tiger Woods fan, and can overlook the addition of Hank Haney and the horrendous commentary of Kelly Tillman and Sam Torrence, then this is the golf game you’ve been waiting for. Hopefully EA will release new courses via DLC in the near future to keep the online play fresh. It would also be great if they could partner up with the PGA/LPGA tours and have tour pros post gamer net challenges online for the community to beat.
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