As a bystander – as opposed to a healthy participant – of golf, I have always wondered what intrigues players in the sport to commit spending their day on the golf course. Is it the wide-open greens that attract long-time veterans of the sport? Could it be the chance to have a little peace and quiet with a few select friends? Whatever the reason is, golf’s popularity is heavily increasing; in the United States alone there are approximately 16,000 golf courses.

With Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 releasing under a new development team at Electronic Arts, I thought this would be the best time to finally venture back to the Tiger Woods series. I stopped playing EA’s trademark franchise a few years back due to the lack of innovation. Now, with several members from the old Outlaw Golf series on the development team, I believe this is the best chance for everyone to be introduced to Tiger Woods on the Xbox 360 if they have never played the series before. With playing Tiger Woods 08, I had to go back to Tiger Woods 07 to determine how far the series has actually come and it has progressed quite well.

First off, I want to tackle the new features that are being introduced. Xbox 360 players will jump with delight to hear that their Xbox Live Vision camera can be used with Tiger Woods. This year’s Photo Game Face comes with the ability to add a front and side picture within character creation. How does this work? After snapping the pictures, players must line them up on the game maps. After waiting 20 minutes, the game will hopefully deliver a strikingly similar resemblance to the user. I say hopefully because there have been a few times I couldn’t even recognize myself on the screen. If players don’t own an Xbox Live Vision camera, they can upload their own personal pictures through EA servers online and then map them through the game, but I highly suggest the Xbox Live Vision route due to the better clarity and results it produces.

The next feature up for discussion is the online portion of Tiger Woods and what heavily influences it: Gamernet. With Gamernet, online communication has been taken to the next level.  Players can record everything from their best rounds to those remarkable shots everyone likes to brag about. There are two choices in saving the videos: saving them as a Gamernet challenge to your friends or uploading it strictly as a video clip. Saving it as a challenge will allow players to post a challenge to everyone online. The players will be able to set the rules of how the shot was performed and then the challengers must meet the criteria set for the challenge. Beating the challenges first will provide the players with points to compare to others on how effective their golf game is.

The rest of the online play is what players should come to expect from their EA Sports titles – an ESPN ticker at the bottom, updates every half and hour or so, and the usual play that allows up to four players. I never ran into any bad experiences with lag, so my experience with Tiger Woods online portion was overall pleasant. The only negative isn’t against the game itself, but it’s the fact that I don’t have enough friends who relish a good game of golf online.

The actual gameplay has improved slightly over last year’s title. The difficulty has been spruced up to give veteran players a test on their skills. But to address the difficulty, the developers added in a Shot Confidence tracker to tackle issues where players lack in their ability to understand the game. The all-new Shot Confidence tracks the player’s performance on each course, all the holes, every single club and every shot type. Being able to analyze a past performance with the Confidence Meter is helpful to identify strengths and weaknesses before every shot. The more times the players attempt to finish a course and complete them with precision, the more the confidence meter will rise. Thankfully, EA has incorporated the Confidence Meter to only go up – so if you are having difficulties on a course, your confidence won’t bottom out from a horrible performance.

Hitting the golf ball is a tad bit harder than I expected though I bet experienced Tiger Woods fans won’t have any trouble. The putting mechanics help create a better entry into the game as I have always struggled with my putting – real life or not. The putting preview helps tremendously with showing where the ball is going and being able to adjust the position of where you want to hit the ball. With Tiger Woods 08, I never had too many problems with the putting but in fact with successfully chipping the ball. I hope next time the developers help out with chipping as much as they did with putting.

In terms of what modes are provided, the two that stick out are the Tour Season and Tiger Challenge. The Tour Season is more difficult than ever and players will want to level up their character before trying to advance far in their virtual careers. With the Tiger Challenge, it pits players against seven other players until they finally duel with Tiger at the end. I recommend a lot of practice and time spent with Tiger Woods 08 before entering into the Tour Season. As for the computer A.I., they are on par with last year’s title in terms of how good they actually play within the game.

Fans of golf games are in for a visual treat with Tiger Woods 08. The courses are mapped beautifully with great sand traps and marvelous greens. The trees on the courses will sway and cast realistic shadows. The golfers themselves still need improvement on their animations – they are stiff! But aside from that small nitpick, the graphics are stellar. The audio work on the other hand if forgettable. There are a few sound effects thrown in to spice it up but they are limited in number.

Gameplay: 8.6
In total, there are 16 courses to play on and a wide range of players to use such as Tiger Woods, John Daly, Vijay Singh and Annika Sorenstam. The game plays great but it will prove difficult for some.

Graphics: 8.7
Not counting the stiff animations, the graphics are gorgeous.

Sound: 7.1
The audio is bland all the way through.

Difficulty: Medium
Golfing has never been my best ability in real life and it shows within Tiger Woods 08. I had trouble on several occasions – though I don’t think long-time fans will struggle.

Concept: 8.0
The Photo Game Face is an incredible feature to include in Tiger Woods. I wish everyone could monkey around with this character creator option to see how useful it actually is.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Online play allows up to four players and never lagged in sessions I played.

Overall: 8.3
I recommend everyone to at least rent Tiger Woods to play around with the character creation tools. You’ll be amazed how close it can provide a likeness to the user. The gameplay doesn’t falter and holds up reasonably well to bring forth an all-around polished game.