Customer Reviews

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first thing you'll notice is the complete graphics overhaul from 08 that completely immerses you a truly Hi-def golfing realm with the most detailed and beautiful courses you'll ever witness designed down to a "Tee" to their real-life counterparts. I was blown away by the 08 to 09 screen-shot comparison, needless to say 09 blows 08 out of the water hazard. And when I say overhaul, EA really went out of their way to make this a Golf Graphical masterpiece and that's not even touching upon Tiger's rep for uncanny ability to produce drug-like addictive game play that can only be subsided with therapy.

As typical to recent Tiger tradition, this game uses the thumb-stick to simulate your swing; pull back and push forward as straight as you can to take a flawless swing. The further and longer you pull back on your backswing, the higher percentage of power will be applied to your shot. If you pull or push slightly to the right or left with your thumb-stick motion, you will end up slicing or hooking your shot in varying degrees depending on how bad you shanked one. Last year's gameplay suffered because it was so finely tailored to your thumb-stick motion that you had to be insanely precise and accurate with your swing in order to have a decent day on the golf course often leaving your blood boiling in frustration. Holes-in-ones and chip-ins were a rare-breed. 09 relaxed a bit and is more forgiving with the thumb-stick swing and accuracy. What I really like this year is that it displays your thumb-stick motion with lines (one for backstroke & one for follow-through) on the ball icon at the bottom left to show you exactly what you are doing right or wrong which allows you to re-adjust if needed for your next shot. Brilliant. This same ball icon also shows you how much extra power you put on your swing (Tap A during you backswing to add power to your shot), the percentage power of your shot (how far you took your backswing) and the spin on your ball (Tap A while ball is flight and a direction).

For the first time since Tiger's debut, you do not have to start from the bottom of the attributes barrel; no more starting at the beginner level and move your way up from scratch. Depending on how well you perform in the intro-training mode with Coach Haney will determine your initial skill level. If you played Tiger before (which I'm sure most of reading this have), your skill should be nowhere near the "Beginner" level. If you are Tiger vet like myself, you should start the game at somewhere in the "Pro" or "Master" level. If you are new to the game, don't panic as this game teaches everything you need to know with Tutorials with Coach Haney and, trust me, leaves plenty of room for improvement. What is also new, and you may dislike or like this feature, is the fact each attribute (four total) and your overall skill level can increase or decrease (*new) depending on how well you played the previous course. In previous versions, you could only improve upon attributes. This year, if you play crappy, expect your attributes, where you executed poorly, to go down. Further to boot, Coach evaluates your performance at end of a course or play and gives you the appropriate attribute training sessions on areas where he feels you need improvement. Choose to train or not, it's up to you -- Coach is just trying to further improve your game. This new skill concept certainly draws this game closer to real golf (even Tiger has bad days) and makes for almost an endless challenge.

The four attribute levels, compressed from previous versions, are: Power, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting. Also, you will have an Average Skill (an average of all four attribute skill levels) rated zero to ten (0-10). If you are smashing drives straight, look for your power and accuracy to increase. If you're shanking drives into the woods, look to botch your power and accuracy skill.

Also for the first time (I love new features), you can tune your clubs. Not happy with your accuracy, increase the sweet spot of the club ultimately giving you more control but sacrificing power or vice versa. You can also tweak loft, spin, fade and draw. Tune club mode puts you on a driving range, allowing you to tune the club in question and then immediately test it out on the range. Too much draw, no problema -- tweak it until that baby is hitting straight. Do you need to counteract your slice with a slight draw - here's the spot to do it. More power less control, yup. Do you want more loft on your short game irons to place the ball dead accurate near the cup, you got it -- tweak and tune your clubs to match your style.

Character creation and customization: One of Tiger's strong suits lie with player progression and customization. Nothing new, with tiger this year as last, you have an infinite number of options to create a character so that your avatar in the game almost identically matches your real life counterpart right down to the mole on your forehead. You can use the infamous Gamernet to upload your picture and face-capture your mug in a 3D rendering onto the game. Further customize your mug and player by inputting style of hair, clothes, height, weight etc. Game play, depending on how you play, will give you credits towards accessories, clubs and clothes to purchase to further develop your character .

Commentary: With a new face comes a new voice, 09 has changed a long tradition by switching commentators. The hilarious mockumentary and savviness offered by McCord and Faherty are out and will certainly be missed. Their refreshing, witty dry humor made you laugh and shone light even if you were having a bad day on the course. I won't deduct too many points though because it seems those guys were around Tiger for a long time and hearing different voices, at least at first, is refreshing but obviously not as humorous. Kelly Tillman and Sam Torrance are up to bat now and although uber-savvy in the world of golf lack in adding any new depth, excitement and humor. All is not lost, they offer great commentary, history, advice and still let you know when you are awful.

"New Courses and Golfers-Test your skills on new courses, including Gary Player Country Club in South Africa, Wentworth Country Club in England, and more, while international stars Se Ri Pak, Darren Clarke, and others join the competition." Amazon.com. Yes Yes and Yes!

Update: After Coach Haney's initial evaluation (one for every attribute: Driving, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting), he will give you an initial rating with a maximum rating of 4 (out of 10). No, you won't be able to be a perfect 10 at the start the game regardless of how well you perform in training. After all, what fun would that be. It leaves room to truly master your game. Play a round in a tournament or take on the Tiger Challenge to increase your attributes. If you've played Tiger before, it won't be long before you reach an average skill of 8 or 9. If you are close to 10, you've mastered and had a flawless streak. The challenge is to be within a certain distance on consistent basis. Even if you are scoring low, if you're not target, your rating will indeed suffer. If your game needs some work, you'll be a 7 and if are a rookie to the series, you be at the 6 or below. The great thing about Tiger, whether new to it or not, it gives plenty of opportunities to improve and more importantly makes you keep coming back for more.

Tiger Challenge has been overhauled and its welcomed change. Instead of a going through a Dynamic Challenge Tree where you select which direction to go in, this time you have to earn enough points to face the boss (PGA Star) of that stage. Each stage as 8+ challenges that you can play to earn points to face the boss. Once the boss of that stage is beaten, you move onto the next level until you ultimately reach Tiger Woods himself. This makes it more linear than the previous versions but it still fun and challenging nonetheless. If anything, Tiger Challenge is a fast way to earn cash to purchase new clothes and equipment.

First, I must say that I am a HUGE fan of the Tiger Woods games. I have always enjoyed each years release and have never been disappointed with any version save for the number of courses included (more on that later).

-The new dynamic ability system is fantastic. I have good days and bad days on the course in real life and it does impact my overall ability so it is nice to see this included in the game. Some people will hate this though as it does punish you if you have a really bad round and forces you to place importance on EVERY shot regardless of whether you are in the hunt or not.

-Graphics- there is definitely a noticeable improvement in the graphics. The course textures are more detailed and varied and the lighting has been improved 10 fold which gives the whole course a real nice look and casts some really gorgeous shadows from the trees. The water is insanely beautiful. The only downside is the trees. While they are much improved over last years version there are times when some of them are downright ugly. What makes them look worse is that the rest of the course is so beautifully rendered.

-The sound effects are great as always with a plethora of diverse environmental sounds on every hole. The cheers from the crowd sound good as well. As stated in another review on Amazon, it would have been nice to be able to turn off the crowd and just listen to the course sounds so it feels more authentic to when you go out in real life. The commentary is awful as always so I just turn it off.

-Club tuning is now a feature in Tiger Woods and I like it quite a bit. It feels very authentic going to the range and tweaking how your clubs work and it definitely has an impact on the game, at least it does for me.

-Courses - I believe there are 16 in this year's game which is the same number as last year. There are some great new additions like Wolf Creek and the Gary Player Country Club but there should have been at LEAST another 4 courses included. I am certain that EA will dress up some of the older courses from years past and sell them to us for 400 ms points which is just plain wrong. How about this EA? For each brand new course you want to sell to us on the marketplace include one of the older courses for free. 2 courses for 400 points sounds perfect to me.

There is also an option to actually PURCHASE items in the pro shop with ms points. A clever idea but the prices are so high that it is just not worth it because you can still just earn in game money and purchase them. I tested it out and they wanted 200 ms points for a polo shirt that provided NO bonus skill at all. Insane. They should have made these items 20-30 ms points each at most.

So there you have it, a quick rundown of my opinions on Tiger Woods 09. I am sure there is more I should have said but I want to go play now :)

Overall I highly recommend this game to anyone that remotely likes video game golf. I am VERY happy with my purchase!!

PS- Hey EA, leave Take Two alone. You already own too much and have ruined countless games. Bioshock and GTA do not need your unrealistic corporate deadlines interfering with product quality!!

There is no doubt Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 has beautiful graphics and great game play but it's pretty much been that way since 06. My main beef is the fact that the game case clearly says co-op 2 for regular and online play, but I see no difference from past Tiger Woods PGA Tour's!!! The game should include co-op in regards to the career mode so my buddies and I can play the tour together... Playing mini-games against one another gets old quick! But playing on the same tourney or tour with a friend gaining career attributes etc against the computer is more constructive and full filling! Again great game but I recall co-op tour play on Fox Sports Golf circa 99' PS1 so being that Tiger Woods has a monopoly on golf games for the Xbox 360 I guess I'll just have to accept it and hope they wise up and include co-op tour play.

Others have commented at length about the core features of this game, so I will focus on some aspects of the single-player gameplay that struck me. My last Woods title was the 07 version, so that is my basis for comparison.

I agree with the other reviews that praised the graphics and controls; this is a game that looks and plays beautifully. The new features are excellent. The Club Tuner works exactly as advertised and it helped me clean up my swing. One thing that is a bit counterintuitive is that the more expensive "expert" clubs can hurt your score, as the increased distance you get from them is often more than countered by the decline in the "sweet spot" that they provide. In other words, the "better" clubs can offer penalties that outweigh the benefits. When I first started playing I upgraded my clubs as soon as I could afford them, only to find myself shanking balls wildly that had always gone straight up the fairway before. Many players will want to keep the beginner or advanced clubs until they can hit that narrow spot that leads to perfect drives. The clubs can all be edited, however, so you can go in and adjust them until you feel comfortable with them.

Another thing that some players may find frustrating is the way that the game rapidly ramps up in challenge as you move up the difficulty level. Having had experience with the 07 version of the game, I quickly found myself posting insane scores on the championship tour on the default difficulty (in one 2-round tournament I was at -30, with Tiger far behind in second place at -10). At the next "Hard" difficulty, however, the computer-controlled golfers suddenly started posting round scores in the 50s, requiring me to play flawless rounds just to stay in contention. I remember one tournament where the game was being played in gale-force winds (~30mph) and all the CPU golfers were still posting rounds of -12 or -13. The course records and such that you can get are nice bonuses for good play, but the computer players aren't counted when those awards are calculated (for example, I was awarded an all-time course record for one round, and was still in 5th place, with 4 computer golfers ahead of me). Similarly, I occasionally saw jumps in the computer scores that were almost impossible unless the CPU was hitting Double Eagles left and right.

The in-game Pro Shop offers extensive customization but has some negatives. The idea of selling bonus gear for Microsoft Points isn't that offensive to me, since you can just ignore it, but I've heard it creates some problems for online play. There are some silly items like pirate hats and Elvis costumes, but again, those can be ignored if you're looking for a more serious game (although some of the more ridiculous items offer the best stat bonuses). If you perform decently at all in the Tiger Challenge or the Championship Tour, you'll quickly accumulate more money than you can spend (unless you're someone who accumuluates every item available for your virtual golfer).

These minor glitches tend to reduce the game's impact as a golf "sim". But if you don't mind the occasional silly scores or unrealistic situations, and just want a fun, engaging game of golf, this game provides it in spades. When you're playing a round and you're at an 18th hole Par 5, two shots behind the leader, with a million virtual dollars on the line, you get a rush that even Madden or NBA 2kx can't equal.

The other reviewers did an excellent job describing the game for people who've never played TW before. My review will be short and sweet for those who have played in the last few years. Basically I bought 09 because of all the people not satisfied with 10. I mean, I got it for about $15 on Amazon. I figured for $15 there were enough changes to warrant playing it over the dusty 08 sitting on the shelf.

That being said, there isn't a whole lot to rave about. Perhaps I didn't notice an upgrade in graphics because I recently bought an HD TV and (perhaps wrongly) attribute the increase to that alone. Suffice it to say, the graphics are good.

For me, the club tuner is fluff. It really doesn't add much to the game. For instance, one of the tunable attributes is loft. Tuning for loft is the equivalent of simply choosing another club! In essence, each tunable feature reduces the "sweet spot", which in turn makes you rely more heavily on spin to correct a poor shot. In reality, you may only NEED the tuner to get past some challenges to score points (long drives, getting over trees etc), it won't improve your score during normal game play. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't take away from the game at all, but it shows how far they need to go just to say the game has "improved" over past years. I would trade the club tuner for more courses any day.

Perhaps the most important thing about 09 is there isn't really anything major to complain about which is a plus now-a-days. The game is solid and worth adding to your collection at today's low prices. And if you're buying your first TW, this is probably the one to get.

Game is fun to play, real courses & more real golfers. Online gaming is great. The only drawback is the swing control for expert clubs. You have to hit almost perfect to hit strait. Other than that it is great.

I've played the Tiger Woods/PGA Tour games for many years. The 2009 edition is a lot of fun. There are a few things I liked about the past editions that are missing from 2009, but the overall enhancements make this game a winner.

The positives start with the fantastic graphics. I played this on a HDTV, and the graphics are just unbelievable. The water is very realistic, particularly at Pebble. The galleries are a lot of fun. You'll love the reactions when your ball hits someone in the gallery. There are new courses on this game, and they all are beautiful.

EA Sports made the attributes "dynamic", and simplified them. Now there are just four attributes: power, accuracy, short game, and putting. You can't go buy attributes with your winnings as before. You have to hit the ball long and in the fairway, close to the pin, etc. You can buy equipment and clothing that gives bonuses to your attributes. There is also a new way to swing, called the "3-click" system (uses the A button). Using this, you don't have to swing using the left stick.

The "Tiger Challenge" is fun. You have to beat several pros before you get to Tiger. To play each of the pros, you have to play challenges and accumulate enough points to play the pro. What's good about this is that you don't have to play all of the challenges...just enough to get your points.

There are things I didn't like as well, but they are not enough to knock my rating down. I bonded less to the Hank Haney "training" feature as the game went on. At first, it was good because Hank gave you drills that could improve your attributes. But, when you are hitting 350 yard drives it's kind of funny to hear him say you need to work on your power!
I also missed the commentary between Gary McCord and David Feherty. They have been replaced by Kelly Tilghman and Sam Torrance. I also miss the fantasy courses, like The Highlands.

Overall though, this is a great video game. Can't wait to see the 2010 edition!

Highly recommended.

I've always been a fan of this franchise and I've been out of the loop on since 2007 so I'll be comparing this to that and previous games

Pros-
Difficulty levels are just right depending on your experience
Swing control is switchable to desired analog stick, a big help since my left hand is retarded :P
3 point swing assist is great for those who have an inconsistent swing or prefer this option
Swing is way more forgiving which I think is due to the Club Tuner
Gameface is still awesome and even better with a 360 camera
Great graphics especially on an HDTV
Sound is not bad and I usually play music from my iPod anyway

Cons-
They need to bring the old commentators back
What happened to the fantasy courses?.... should at least be downloadable content on XBLM

Will update review as the game progresses. I left the online gameplay out since I haven't played yet and I don't have a good grasp of the courses and my attributes are still average :)

This years Tiger Woods- the analog stick swing is a lot more forgiving- and the club tuner, is helpful.

What is totally annoying however, is the new voice overs/acting. They are NOT fun, they are lagging behind the action, and it is almost unbearable to listen to them- I miss the old guys.

I SHOULD be one of the biggest Golf fans ever... I spent 12 years living 15 minutes away from the Augusta National - home of the Masters Golf Tournament. However, I've never been the National, and I've spent no more than an hour total watching the Masters on TV.

But I've played countless rounds of golf on computers, dating back to the original "Microsoft Golf" that came included on our 166 megahertz PC in 1996.

Tiger Woods 09 is the culmination of countless "greats." The stick swing - a method entirely new to me in the 2008 game - was incredibly cumbersome in Woods 08. I could never figure out what the game wanted me to do, so I skipped the method altogether in favor of the 3-click method.

With the inclusion of the real-time monitor - a picture of a golf ball with a yellow line that draws your stroke path, as well as arrows at the top and bottom of the ball showing your precise alignment - accurate swings are easier than ever.

If you're still having a hard time, you can go to the Club Tuner - a remarkably easy-to-use interface that allows you to adjust everything from power, loft, workability (amount of possible "curve," left to right,) spin, and more. Of course you trade in the increase of these attributes at the loss of sweet spot - the amount of "fudging" allowed when you swing.

The graphics are simply dazzling. The water areas are just beautiful. Trees have a nice three dimensional look to them. Everything is just very nice. Even the menus and scorecards are nice and clean.

The newest inclusion is that of simultaneous multiplay online - a feature I actually got to try myself. It makes for a game that's actually faster than singleplay because it skips the flybys and such. The only thing I don't like is the shot clock, limiting players to no more than 60 seconds per shot. This is golf - it's not supposed to be a race. I realize the pros probably play against a shot clock, but we're not the pros. Still, at 60 seconds, you have plenty of time to aim, analyze the course and make your swing.

There are tons of ways to customize your character. Even without using the Game Face feature (yet,) I was still able to create a golfer with a striking likeness to myself. I just wish there were a few more facial hair features - I can't replicate my goatee. The only bummer I still feel is that they give you a wide range of clothing to wear, but certain pieces have certain attribute increases. This is nice, but if you want to dress your character a certain way (I REALLY like black polos!) you're either stuck with the attributes that those clothes boost - even if they're not what you want - or you're stuck wearing non-flattering outfits in the interest of getting the desired boosts. It obviously doesn't hurt the game, but why can't you just let me change colors?

Lastly, the greatest feature in my opinion is the ability to switch between the analog-stick swing and the 3-click swing with the click of a button, mid-play. This allows you to make drives with ease and the realistic feel of golf, but switch to a 3-click for those challenging putts. Unfortunately, the 3-click is not available in the Hard difficulty setting, which is what I wanted to play with. I don't understand why - the 3-click has it's own challenges. Why can't it be included in Hard play? Using the stick-swing to dial in 62% power is nearly impossible.

But all issues aside, Tiger 09 is a fantastic game that rewards golf enthusiasts of all ages and skill. The Gamernet feature from EA is very inobtrusive and gives players the chance to challenge themselves just that little bit extra, if desired. Challenges may pop up to drive further than another player, land within a distance of the pin, etc. You can also go online just with the purpose of taking on various challenges - some of which are quite difficult! It's amazing how many different ways of enjoying Golf this game gives you.

Makes me want to go get a set of clubs and hit up a local course. Maybe I will...