Let's be honest here, the only sport more boring to watch on television than golf is figure skating. Scratch that, figure skating is better because sometimes they fall and break bones or someone gets kneecapped by a goon. Is anyone reading this even old enough for a Tonya Harding joke? Man I feel old...

   So then, we've established that watching middle aged men walk around and hit a ball with a stick is pretty dull (even though when they are young enough to run instead of walking and to use a club instead of a stick, we like it, and call it "baseball"). However, thanks to the Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchise, playing golf on your favorite console has always been slightly more tolerable than in real life. The big question is how often do you need to update a golf game? EA releases a new Tiger game every year, but this isn't Madden - it's not like there's a massive roster turnover every year on the PGA tour. As demanding and strenuous as the PGA is, ACL blowouts are surprisingly rare. So essentially, if you've played any Tiger Woods title for the past several years, you can safely skip this outing.

So Many Ways to Spoil a Walk

   One criticism that has never been leveled against a Tiger Woods title is that there's nothing to do. In addition to traditional match and stroke play, you can tee off for a game of Skins or Stableford. Furthermore, there are a ton of "arcade" modes such as Bingo, Bango, Bongo and One Ball. I'll bet a stack of dead presidents that there is an actual family of four insane, beer-drinking, shotgun-wielding, redneck brothers with those very names somewhere out there in the mid-west. Regardless, the bottom line is that even if you aren't a huge golf fan, you can definitely give the franchise credit for coming up with lots of creative ways to play.

   The bulk of your experience will likely be tied up in Career Mode, where you can tackle the Tiger Challenge, try and work your way through a PGA Tour season and win the FedEx Cup, or head to the driving range to hone your skills.

   To kick things off, you'll need to create a golfer. Shocking, I know. As always, the customization options are almost limitless, and you can make your character look pretty much however you want. For some reason though, my golfers always ended up looking vaguely Pakistani, but with more interest in swinging a club than in fermenting political unrest.

   That's great, you say, but pretty much every game out lets you create a character, so this is nothing special. Well that's where you are wrong and why I openly laugh at you. EA has included a new feature called Photo Game Face where you can take a couple digital shots of your face, upload them to the game, and then use these shots to map out a digital version of yourself. At first, I was skeptical, thinking they'd never get it right, but the results are truly amazing. The likeness is almost dead-on, leading to a sense of realism rarely before seen. So now you can play with a vaguely Pakistani-looking man who is wearing your face. In how many other games can you do THAT?

I Like My Frustration with a Side of Irritation and a Dollop of Anger

So What's New? Hey, Where Are You Going?

   A lot of yearly sports franchises suffer from a lack of innovation, and this one is no different. Aside from the Photo Game Face feature (which is great), the only other real offering is the advent of EA Gamernet, which allows you to upload your best shots onto the servers and challenge other golfers to beat it. However, since most of the people on Xbox Live have the same sense of humor as Jackie the Joke Man, most of the clips are of creative ways to whack fans with stray shots. Don't even bother posting a serious challenge; people would rather try to tag a guy in the crotch from 250 yards. I know, I know, it is more fun.

   There is also a new putt preview feature this year, but it's utterly worthless. Before every putt you can press LB to see where your shot will go, but it only works when it wants to. Putt preview is even less suited for any shot that requires you to hit with less than 100% power, as the break of the green is exaggerated with lower power shots. Really, you shouldn't even bother with the putt preview, as it's simply a broken crutch that will cause you to play the game at least 4 strokes worse than you would have if you'd just lined up the putts yourself.

At Least It Looks and Sounds Like the Real Thing... Too Bad the Real Thing Is So Boring

   Many aspects of the game are quite visually stunning. The character models of the pro golfers are exceptional, and the water's just so pretty that you may hit a few shots into it just to see it close up. The courses themselves aren't that appealing though, as everything just looks flat and boring. Trees and grass are ugly, and the gallery of spectators shows what happens when developers get lazy and decide that 7 polygons should be plenty to approximate a human being. How some parts of the game can look so good while others look so bad baffles me, but then again, I've been playing games long enough to know better.

   The same announcing team that's been with the series since the beginning is back, and they're still just as enjoyable as always. However, it seems like every year they record fewer and fewer new lines and all we get is reheated commentary from last year's game. That problem is still in effect this year, and they're also coming to a point where they seem to get confused and make good calls for bad shots and bad calls for good ones. Oh well, they ARE quite old, maybe the dementia has finally caught up with them. If next year's game features a commentator fencing an imaginary foe on the 9th green while naked, then I'll know for sure. In fact, even if they are still sane, put that in anyway, it'll make for a more fun title.

If I Wanted to Make a Shot That Bad I'd Just Play Real Golf

   For those of you who have never really liked the analog swing, prepare to hurl controllers, pets, and loved ones. It's back in full force this year, and it's even touchier than before. If you're off by so much as a few centimeters your shot will end up out of bounds, and you'll be treated to a lovely trip to the police station because you imbedded your driver into no less than 3 and no more than 7 spectators' skulls. You can switch back to the old fashioned "3 click" swing with a tap of the right stick, but it doesn't help matters much. The cursor moves at Mach 3, so hitting a straight shot is about as hard as with the analog swing. Basically, the game wants you to know how hard it is to be a real golfer, so you don't get ideas in your head about actually beating Tiger at a round. Gee EA, thanks for helping me escape reality for five freaking minutes.

For the Cost of This Game, You Could Get Yourself a Solid Hooker (or Even a Liquid One!)

   Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 is not a bad game, far from it, actually. In fact, the team that makes the game does a great job of mixing just the right amount of arcade playability with sim game realism. However, there's not really anything here that makes this year's version any better than previous titles. The game has all the same courses and play modes as you've already seen before, and the Photo Game Face, while cool, is not worth buying an entirely new game. Take the money you'll save and go get yourself a nice lap dance, you'll be happy that you did.

       ... Brad