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Another round of enjoyable golf. The Tiger Woods videogame franchise has been going strong for many years now. It may be too strong since the biggest detriment against Tiger Woods 07 is that it doesn’t radically reinvent the wheel. Arguably, when the gameplay is this good, it doesn’t need to.
Tiger Woods 07 features many gameplay modes. The game includes the typical game modes like stroke, best ball, skills 18, skins, real time event calendar, battle golf, etc. For a more in-depth mode, you can head to PGA Tour where you’ll go through a season mode and be given quite a challenge from the pros. One of the more interesting modes is Rivals Mode. In this mode, you’ll complete worldwide challenges, improving your character along the way. It is particularly interesting because you can assemble an entourage to beat Tiger’s team and you can even build up their abilities as well.
Tiger Woods 07 includes 21 courses and golfers. EA added a few fictional characters in the last year as well as Annika Sorenstam. You can still find legends like Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer. The courses include some oldies but goodies like Pebble Beach, Bay Hills and St. Andrews. New courses include K Club, Las Vegas’ The Falls and California’s Aviara. EA also included some fictional courses like Safari Country Club and Central Park.
Tiger Woods 07 refines the controller changes made in last year’s game. Tiger 06 introduced the shape stick, which intuitively enables you to influence the spin and flight of the ball by moving the right analog stick around. However, the game still lets you play without using the shape stick. You can even opt for the botton-pressing swinging system, if this new-fangled analog swinging system is too much for you. Taking a page from EA’s Street series, the game also includes a Gamebreaker mode which enables you to hit farther or more accurate, though not perfectly as in some of the Street games. To the dismay or enjoyment of some, last year’s Tiger vision is gone so you are no longer guaranteed a successful put. Tiger Proofing makes a return, really upping the challenge for some of the more familiar courses.
Visually, Tiger Woods is up to par. The courses still look excellent featuring plenty of details including animals moving around in the background to keep things interesting. The player models look good, but they look very similar to those of last year which in turn were just like those in Tiger 05. The created players also look excellent and have much detail thanks to the extensive tool. With it, you can create players and adjust pretty much everything including height to something like ear shape. The inclusion of era-specific clothing in the create-a-player tool makes for some crazy looking yet widely amusing characters. It’s hard to complain about the game’s looks but it at the same time, it’s hard to ignore that the game’s graphics haven’t changed significantly in a few years.
The same can be said about the game’s audio. It is still top-notch, accurately recreating the sounds of golf. The commentary from Gary McCord who provides well-meaning commentary contrasts with the comical arrogance of David Feherty. The game’s create a player tool allows you to choose one of give voices for your character. All of the voices are pretty good and add life to the character. Once again, it would be nice to hear some new sound effects or voice overs every now and then.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 is undoubtedly the best golf game on the market right now. If you picked up last year’s version, however, the refinements—unless you’re a diehard Tiger fan—may not be enough to warrant the purchase. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 17, 2006
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