Once you do get to the point where you can compete in the tourney, the fun picks up again. This is the real meat of any great golf game—playing in events and trying to earn money, make cuts, and win trophies. However, the fun wanes when you see that the game has kept in place the frustrating rubber band AI of Tiger ’07.
This is, without question, one of the most nonsensical ‘features’ of any sports game to date. The rubber band AI keeps you in the hunt every tourney; it forces the AI players to play to your level. If you start the tourney off with a rousing 79—don’t fret! The AI will all, to a player, shoot in the high 70s and low 80s for round two. It’s beyond stupid. For a game that forces you to get to the point where you can even play in a tourney and one that has made the game itself more difficult, now it decides to hold your hand, making all that hard work meaningless. If you shoot rounds of 78, 70, 72, 80, you can bank on the fact that every AI player in the field will shoot scores that follow that same track—maybe not the exact same scores but they’ll all shoot high, then around par, and then finish with a bad score.
The game does look a bit better this year. It’s not a significant change, but it does look crisp and more detailed. The various swing animations are all smooth, outside of the putting, which still doesn’t look quite right in spots due to the fact that you have to take full strokes even on putts inside of two feet. It just looks weird.
The sound, however, continues to annoy. Golf is about drama, and thanks to the commentators you know beforehand if the ball is going to find the fairway, rough, bunker, whatever. Can someone get McCord to just shut up? When the ball is in flight you should have to agonize over whether or not it’ll make it over the water, not be told by the commentators the moment you hit it as to its final resting place.
Three new gameplay features this year include the Putt Preview, manual draw and fade buttons and Shot Confidence. For the most part these all make sense and work as intended. The Putt Preview isn’t available on the hardest level of difficulty but for those who still have trouble reading greens this gives you a good idea as to the break. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll sink a putt; it just gives you a one time view of the potential path of your ball.
Shot Confidence is tracked over the course of your career, and the game knows how well you perform on a given hole, using a specific club, etc. The landing zone is then widened or shrunk depending on your past performance. This is a very cool concept and it actually works fairly well. Finally, the manual draw/fade button does pretty much what you expect. It’s just an easier way to put draw and fade on a shot without having to master the already finicky swing mechanic.
These new features certainly add to the game, it’s just a shame that the rest of the design isn’t as fleshed out. Playing online remains fun, but it’s still populated by too many players who quit if they don’t win the first hole of match play. You can see which players are prone to quitting but it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll play with someone who is in for the long haul. Nothing is more annoying that playing five holes of match play only to go up 3-2 and have the player quit. This isn’t the game‘s fault, really, it’s just what you have to deal with on Xbox Live. As always, it’s best to just play with friends.
Tiger Woods 08 is an upgrade in terms of pure on the course play; it’s technically a better game than 07, but the overall design remains so dull and workmanlike that it feels like a job at times more than a game, and is only recommended for those who like playing the mini games and hopping online rather than for those who just want to jump in and start playing tournaments.
