Tiger Woods is back on Xbox 360 this year in the latest release being Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07. Tiger 07 indeed does look really nice and has plenty of modes of play on offer, but it feels more driven towards golf fans or just players of the previous versions. The game is rather difficult to get into at first, even more so if you’re a new-comer to the Tiger Woods brand of golf gaming; however things will improve as you learn the ropes and increase your characters stats enabling you to have that much more needed control over your swings, power and putting. There are also fewer courses to play on than in the PS2 and Xbox versions of the same game, which seems a shame even more so considering EA’s rather expensive price tag for their Xbox 360 games.

Gameplay

The gameplay is excellent but yet extremely sensitive and unforgiving at the same time. You control your swing with the left analogue stick; moving the stick backwards while pressing A or the left bumper then pushing the stick forwards should result in a power shot, once the ball is airborne tapping the same buttons A or the left bumper and moving the left analogue stick in the desired direction that you want the ball to land will create more spin. This is a bit difficult to do especially if you boost the ball right at the hole as you can on some courses use too much power in one shot and send the ball flying past the hole and into the trees or off into the water thus making it out of bounds – luckily the fans are their to assist and do a good job as acting as a barrier to your ball as it will often hit someone in the crowd in some rather painful places and keep the ball either on the green or just beside it on the rough. Once the ball is on the green you have the rather difficult task of putting, as certain things need to be taken into consideration i.e. distance, power, angles and slopes all of which will effect the outcome of your ball going into the hole. However changing the games difficulty to easy will give you a guide for putting, its known as ‘reading the green’ and it feels more like cheating actually – by pressing and holding A you will be presented with a line on the floor giving you a fairly good idea of how to align the shot. A successful putt will also be determined by how much power and spin you add to the ball. Playing on easy difficulty certainly makes the CPU more forgiving as they seem to be less skilled at putting, giving you a better opportunity to steal the victory. There are plenty of modes in Tiger Woods 07 to keep you busy for a long while including Xbox Live multiplayer (with no lag issues), T-I-G-E-R challenge, PGA Tour Championship and a plethora of mini-games and training courses to help hone your skills. You can play through the career mode as Tiger Woods himself or create your own male or female character; plenty of time can be spent here to tweak your characters image and make it your own unique character or even with enough time spent you could make a pretty good representation of yourself. One of the more annoying things about the game is when playing against the CPU, you are forced to watch the CPU take its turn, which is extremely irritating – who wants to watch the computer play? Not me, luckily you can skip the short cut-scenes before and after the CPU has taken its shot.

Graphics

Tiger Woods certainly looks very good on the Xbox 360 with a lot of high details to the player models, facial expressions and individual animations for each character, so no golfer ever acts the same, which certainly helps to add to the realism that the game offers. There are certain moments when you may spot objects that don’t look much improved from the last generation of consoles, but for the most part it is a visual delight, if any game were to look good on a next-generation console it would have to be a golf game. With the overall improved presentation comes a broadcast style picture in picture (PIP) window of the golfer on the top right of the screen – these will often appear when someone hits a good shot or has hit a shot and got a lot of force behind it. These do become repetitive though as there is no variety to the scenarios, you will either appear pleased or displeased by the shot and there are only few animations for each one, so these do become repetitive. There is a rather good selection of professional golfers in there as well as EA’s own fictional characters which are mixed up as each character looks unique and adds a bit more variety to the proceedings.

Sound

There is not a great deal that can be said about the sound other than it’s authentic and awfully quiet, which no doubt is to help build tension as you play. There are commentators though and they both are very unforgiving, some times they will give you props for a good shot and then shoot you down when you do an awful one – they will sometimes even complain about a good shot, which is likely just a bug in the game. I prefer to hear the birds tweeting as they fly over head, or that humming sound you get in the air as a plane flies over the course. The water sound effects hitting into the rocks around the course are also a nice touch as well as the fans cheering when you land the ball on the green and they will also shout out “ooh-awww!!” as the ball rolls onto the rough.

Longevity

The overall playing time of the game depends on the gamers’ love for golf and for the game. If you are a golf fanatic or are just interested then there is certainly no better golf game available today. Xbox Live multiplayer is sure to add more replay value as will working your way through the mini-games which don’t let you play against the CPU unfortunately; so at least 2 players are required to play the majority of those games. The PGA Tour Championship and T-I-G-E-R Challenge modes offer up a good challenge as you try to beat as many golfers as possible and eventually go head to head with the man himself, Tiger Woods.

Overall

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 is a good game, but will be challenging for new players with little patience. Though if you like golf you will want to persevere and stick with it and enjoy all it has to offer. For those unsure about the game then you can download a playable demo for free from the Xbox Live Marketplace to help you get to grips with the game and hopefully get into the swing of things. Though if you still have an old Xbox then perhaps purchasing the game on a last generation console would be more suitable as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 on Xbox and PS2 has 9 more maps than the Xbox 360 version for some reason and not to mention the Xbox version will be much cheaper than the Xbox 360 counter part. So you can have the lush visuals with the Xbox 360 release or have a fuller gaming experience with more content at a cheaper price on the Xbox/PS2. It seems unlikely to expect it to be backwards compatible as developers most probably wont want to waste time supporting last generation Xbox versions on the Xbox 360 with backwards compatibility when they have a more expensive, better looking game they want to sell on the Xbox 360.

The Pros

The Cons