Customer Reviews

Tiger Woods Pga Tour 07

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

 

 

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the PS3 really helps to show how far golf games have come. The motions are fluid, the characters realistic, and the gameplay is fun.

First, the gameplay. That's always what matters most in a sports game. We've been playing a lot of Wii sports games and are really impressed with being able to swing the controller like a golf club, which is very "natural". That being said, they did a great job here with what they had available.

Rather than using a "power bar" like some golf games, you simply watch the golfer on the screen, and judge by his actual swing. This means you have to have some knowledge about the real game of golf, to know how much a golfer *should* swing. However, it also means that this doesn't turn into an arcadey button-pushing exercise. You're actually paying attention to the swing and proper form.

On the other hand, once the ball goes up into the air, you can press buttons to affect its flight - including once it lands. I find this a little cheap myself, as if you have a remote control and are moving the ball around. I realize that it'd be a lot to ask a player to do, to control the swing speed, angle, backspin, etc. while they are swinging - but again that would be realistic. So with one hand they giveth, and with the other they taketh away.

There are the standard styles of gameplay here - match play, best ball, as well as a range of fun mini-games. I really like how they handled the tutorials, allowing you to jump in and out of them as you need to. They even let you read them, watch them, or just try them, based on your individual style.

There are different levels of difficulty, so you can let your kid play in easy mode to learn the game, while the experienced golfers can tune their gameplay with a more difficult challenge.

The graphics are rather impressive for a just-after-launch title for a new console. You don't expect those releases to be able to fully utilize what the PS3 offers, but they did well here. Tiger Woods himself looks very realistic and impressive; his movements are quite smooth. You can see individual blades of grass on the greens. The water is a little odd, and the trees are a little pixelly, but I'm sure when '08 comes out they'll nail some of those smaller details.

The key thing with golf is mainly that you can see the fairway, and then read the greens. You don't really pay attention to the details on the audience's faces. I do like how they handle the greens in this game vs in other golf games. The combinations of grids, lines and colors give you a good sense of each area of the green. There are even nice details like shadows of clouds drifting by and reflections in objects.

Does anybody really listen to sound in a golf game? You get the roaring of the ocean, the chirping of birds, and the inane chatter of the commentary folks. Some of their statements made me laugh out loud. You can choose various songs if you're playing with a soundtrack.

If you're a golfer with a PS3, this is definitely the game to get. If you've got other systems, it'll depend if you like the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii enough to offset the lower graphics on that system ... or the motion-twisting PS3 controller vs the 360.

Real-life golfers and folks that don't play golf in real life will enjoy Tiger Woods PGA Tour '07. But if you are a golfer and you are at all familiar with the players and the 12 courses offered in this game, you will find this game most enjoyable.

The courses/players are modeled after the real things, and they are indeed designed to play just like them too. You get Pinehurst, Turnberry, Carnoustie, TPC at Sawgrass, Pebble Beach, Firestone, Glen Abbey, The Prince Course, Spyglass Hill, Riviera, Bandon Dunes & St. Andrews...or you can tell the game to choose a random 18 (or 9).

You can choose to play as some popular golfers that all look like perfectly created CGI versions of the real players [with the exception of Colin Montgomerie who looks more like a scary character out of the other game that I'm currently fascinated with, Resident Evil 4 (PS2 format)]. But the best and most fun way to play is creating your own golfer that you save; then improve your skills through the driving range, practice games and challenge matches.

Besides stroke, match and skins play, there are several other game modes to try (which, frankly, I have not done yet).

It is vital that you play in the aforementioned three modes prior to joining the PGA Tour which is, just like the real thing, a series of Thursday through Sunday four day events (you don't really have to play them on Thursday through Sunday).

Completing practice games and events rewards you with improved skills and cash to spend in the pro shop on items that also help improve your skills.

David Feherty and Gary McCord (the popular PGA TV announcers) narrate your game play during matches. And their commentary can be colorful at times (annoyingly so especially when you hit a bad shot).

I chose to work on my approach shot and putting at first as opposed to power. It has reaped big rewards. By doing that, in the Tiger Challenge mode, I'm already finishing rounds under par and kicking the butts of the likes of Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen and the one and only Tiger Woods. (Then I put down the SIXAXIS, see my actual clubs in the corner and think about the countless rounds of real golf in my future where just breaking 100 is a banner day.)

Up to 4 people can play at a time (my 5 year old crushed me yesterday; he played as Tiger; I played as me), and online play is an option (which I have not done).

After beating all of the golfers in the Tiger Challenge mode, your skill should be sharp enough to now play on the Tour in the Event Calendar mode; I'd highly recommend not joining the tour until you acquire the full potential of your skills by defeating golfers in the Tiger Challenge (and at the range).

Tiger Woods PGA Tour '07 on the PS3 can kill an hour quick if you've got one to spare. Fastest 18 I've ever played. When you're playing with more than one person, set aside a good amount of time if you go a full 18 holes.

Overall, this is a terrific game that is addictive as you are driven to improve your custom golfer's skills. It's great fun for the whole family. Add it to you cart.

Be the ball.

Update: August 28, 2007....The '08 version releases today at more than double the price of the '07 version (as of this writing). A few courses have been added to the '08 version as well as some AI enhancements. But the '07 version at half the price (before it's discontinued and out of stock) is a no-brainer.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour has been the best golf game for years, and with each new release, the better it gets. This year is no exception, however, the port to the PS3 was either rushed or the game designers are still learning how to create for the new console.

The game's greatest strength is the game play. EA has built on it's past achievements and brought a much more realistic round of golf to gaming. There are no more power bars with which to hit the shot just right, or any computer type menus to help you hit your shot. When striking a ball, all you see on screen is the golfer and his club. The strength and straightness of the shot is established by how much back swing you use and how straight your movement is on the thumb stick. This brings a much more genuine feel than the use of power bars and graphical guides and is a bit more fun then just trying to get a cursor to stop and start where you want it to.

You will have to analyze every aspect of the shot to succeed in this game. The wind, the lay, the elevation. I know that is typical of any good golf game, but the controls give all this new meaning an importance. Hitting a ball at 70% power without the assistance of a power bar brings a whole new level of difficulty and satisfaction once you master it.

EA also spent more time creating the computer generated (CG) Tiger. His skin tones are near perfect, his animation is smoother then ever before and he just looks plain awesome. On the downside no other player is rendered at anywhere near the same quality as Tiger, making it a bit distracting to play as anyone else. You have the ability to create your own player, but the results look last generation compared to the CG Tiger.

Here comes the real problem with the PS3 version...

The graphics of the courses themselves are much lower then on the xbox 360 version. The flaws here are not uncommon to early adopters of any new console, but after seeing the beautiful 360 game, it's hard to ignore what's lacking here.

The trees and leaves are very crunchy and noisy and the background falls off to downright ugly very quickly. Some render artifacts are apparent and just nasty. Some of the windows on nearby buildings flicker and flash as the PS3 tries to generate them and the result is by no means next gen. Even the grass on the putting green is soft and blurry. The 360 version is close to photo real when looking at it from above. On the PS3 it looks no better then the PS2.

If you are lucky enough to have both systems, you will be mistaken to grab the PS3 port, but if you're a one system kind of guy/gal and the PS3 is that system, then have no doubts, you will enjoy this game and be able to spend many hours blistering your thumbs.

This is the first version of Tiger Woods I have played and for the most part I have loved playing the game; I really like the career mode and all of the equipment you can unlock by completing certain feats. The difficulty is easily adjustable so I can enjoy it and my nephews can too (without them getting frustrated.) The different golfers look, for the most part, like their true selves and the golf courses look great.

There are a few things that are really annoying though. Mainly, the crowd sometimes gets in the way of shots; if you are in the rough there are a lot of times where they just do not get out of the way and are in direct line for where you are hitting so you either have to take a route away from where you want to hit or drill it right into them (which is fun too since there are some funny animations for when you hit spectators.) I have also had problems where, for no apparent reason, the sound in the game will go out; this is the only game this has happened on and the only way to get sound back on is to quit the game and restart it (which wouldn't be so bad if you could save in the middle of a round.) And that brings up my last problem with the game; no saving in the middle of rounds.....not a game killer but it is annoying (edit: after thinking about this I can see why this is not included to prevent saves after every good hole; but it would be nice if you could save at the turn or something.)

Overall this a really good game with some minor annoyances; definitely recommended for the golf fan.

I bought this game about a year or two after it was first put out, and at this point it had been replaced by newer versions, so it could be had for cheap. I didn't open it for a few months, getting bored with some of the glitzier titles I had bought for my PS3. Since opening Tiger Woods 07, though, I've consistently played it and enjoyed it. Easy to learn, tough to master, it has just the right level of difficulty and replayability for a game of its type. I don't even watch golf, let alone play it, but since playing this game I've caught a few minutes here and there on television and I can actually appreciate it. There is no need to buy a newer, more expensive copy of Tiger Woods than this, if you own a PS3.

Tiger Woods is by far my favorite game of all time, but for the PS3 version they took out all the challenging courses and the tiger tees. If you play the game for a while and get really good at it, even on the hardest difficulty settings, the regular PGA courses are no challenge. The whole fun in the game is playing these rediculously hard, exotic courses and trying to master them. I pray that these courses return for 2008.

The graphics won't blow you away but the gameplay is fun/addicting. Gameplay is basically the same as the previous versions. There are three main gamemodes for single player: PGA Tour, Train My Golfer, and Tiger Challenge. The equipment is still weak and could use an upgrade (I refuse to play with EA clubs, balls, shafts, polos, etc.). They added the FedEX Cup into the gameplay which is cool. I would still pay the $60, it's worth the money.

The gameplay is great but the graphics aren't quite as good as I expected. They are quite a bit better than previous Tiger Woods games but after seeing what is capable with PS3's backgrounds (on the new gran turismo demo) I was expecting a little bit more realism. It doesn't take away from how fun the game is but that is why I couldn't give it a full 5 stars.

The overall graphics in this game are amazing. It really shines in the Game Face mode where you can create just about any type of person you want. Gameplay graphics are also great, my favorite is the water. The reflections looks amazing, especially on an HD TV.

Gameplay is similar to Tiger Woods 06, with a few tweaks. The putting controls are a little easier. They took out the Gamebreaker, which sucks. That was a fun feature.

The available game modes will keep you busy. New is the Tiger Challenge, and golfer training. Both of which improve your golfer's skills. There's the usual PGA Tour matches, and all the multiplayer modes. The online play is also fun, with many stats to track your progress. Online gameplay is lag free, and easy to use.

My beefs with the game are mainly in the polish department. There are carryover glitches from 06. Namely the announcers stating you've "finished one under for round" after sinking a bogey on hole 1... 06 had the same glitch. Also, your shot off the tee sounds like a shotgun, very strange. The audience is also much louder than all other sound effects. Not balanced. The music is terrible this year. 06 had some great artists (Thievary Corporation!), but 07 is pretty weak. Also, EA cut the Pro Shop selections way down. There's probably 25% of what was available in 06. They also cut the number of courses, but that doesn't bother me much. There's still enough to keep busy, and the course renderings in HD are incredible.

Overall, the game is an amazing step up in graphics and takes advantage of the PS3's capabilities. But it seems like it was rushed to market, and those bugs keep it from being an excellent game.

Just ok, but not absolutely dissappointed; kind of a nostalgic feel.
Good profile build feature, though time consuming.