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Genre: Sports Sim

Format: DVD

Developer: Electronic Arts

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4.9, 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 1GB RAM, 2.7GB hard disk space, 8X DVD-ROM drive and ATI X1600, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, or higher video card (Intel GMA950 chipset not supported)

Review Computer: 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo 20" iMac, 2GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon graphics card

Network Feature: Yes

Processor Compatibility: Intel only

Price: $39.95

ESRB Rating: E

Availability: Now

Official Website: www.easports.com/tigerwoods08/

You like playing golf but don't have the time or money to get to a course and definitely can't get into some of the more famous clubs such as Westchester Country Club, TPC Boston, Cog Hill and East Lake. Enter Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, the third in the series, and the latest to promise realism and an interactive gameplay. Is the game a good substitute for the real thing?

For full disclosure, I am not a golfer and have never played golf or watched it on television. The only thing I know about the sport is that you have to put the ball in the hole with the fewest swings possible. Therefore, this review won't be covering the more technical aspects of golf, but instead the features, interface, graphics, etc.

That said, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is pretty darn awesome with enough features and gameplay to last you until 09 comes out.

To start, you can pick a golfer from among the many professionals or make your own. You have extensive control over nearly every aspect of how your golfer looks ,from the size of his nose to how big his feet are to him being tall and skinny or short and fat. If you aren't particular about how you look, you can use the default model or the random generator to make one for you. Having such precise control is a bit overwhelming, but being able to make your computer golfer like you in real life is pretty nifty.

The different game modes are what makes Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 so fun. You can jump right into playing with Play Now, which takes you to a random course with random course conditions. For more precise control, you use the Practice Mode which lets you pick the course, weather conditions, time of day, and more. The Custom Game mode lets you pick the course, how many people you play against, and you can even set up side bets. You can play any of these with one of the professional golfers provided or the ones you create.

If you want something a bit more involved, you can go on the PGA Tour, which starts you out as a hack golfer and takes you all the way through amateur events to professional games, and finally to the PGA Tour which puts you against professional golfers. In this mode, you have to use your custom golfer and watch your money since events have entry fees and it costs money to travel to them, as well as upgrading the clubs you use and the clothes you wear. You have tasks you need to accomplish before you can get into events, and there are tutorials and challenges that you can take to get better at various aspects of golf. By succeeding at the events and challenges, you get points that you can put into four attributes of your custom golfer (power, long game, short game, putting) to get better at them.

If you just want to play the championship, you can skip the amateur level by picking the FedEx Cup game mode, which takes you to the four playoff tournaments: The Barclays, Deutsche Bank Championship, BMW Championship, and THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. You can use the professional golfers provided or your own custom golfer for this, but you'll be given a warning if your own golfer's attributes are too low and will instead be encouraged to play other game modes to get better.

The new game mode this year is the Tiger Challenge, which is a choose your own adventure game. You're presented with a hex grid with each hex being a different challenge with bronze, silver, and gold medal requirements. If you get at least a bronze medal, you've passed the challenge and can take on other challenges and face off against PGA Tour professional golfers until you make a path to Tiger Woods himself. Just as with the PGA Tour mode, you use your custom golfer and earn points you can use to make your golfer stronger and better.

If you're tired of playing against computer opponents, it's extremely easy to play online; you can join clubs and online tournaments, find public games, and more with the Play Online mode. The community is very active with a lot of people playing, so it won't be difficult to get started.

Actually playing golf is easy, and there are many control methods from which to choose, depending on what is best for you. You can use a gamepad or the mouse to simulate swinging the club, or use the spacebar. In addition, you can select what kind of shot—from a strong Power Shot to get as many yards as possible to a low trajectory Punch shot to reduce the effect of wind and many others—from a menu. Changing your stance—from leaning backwards to forwards—is done with a sliding bar. Learning how to golf is easy, and, through practice, even a novice like myself can score par.

A new feature of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is the confidence meter, which seems to add a bit of unknown factor to hitting the ball. Depending on how well you've done at that particular hole with what type of shot you use, your confidence will be higher or lower. If you have high confidence, the attributes of your golfer will be temporarily increased and you will do better. If you have low confidence, nothing negative is done so you won't be penalized. I'm not sure exactly how this effects the gameplay, because it's a subtle effect, but I like the idea of being rewarded for doing really well and having that carry over from game to game.

The interface and graphics are very good, and I am particularly impressed by the grass and trees. Up close, the blades are detailed, the trees sway back and forth when the wind is strong, and the sun shines brightly in the sky. The golfer models are realistic and they have a variety of actions when they do well on a shot to when they do badly. They do get a bit repetitive after a while, but at least they're short and you can skip them if you want. What I didn't like is that it's hard to find where the hole is on the map; you can make the flag bigger, but that only zooms you to it. I also didn't like not being able to easily see how many swings I or my opponents have made on each hole without going to the scorecard. It shows what the par is for that hole, but not your score, and I would have liked that to be more easily accessible.

The music is a mix of light rock, electronic, and some soul music, but oddly enough it only plays off of the golf courses. As you golf, you only hear the sound of the wind and the occasional clapping from the audience. I would have liked to be able to play some of that music while playing golf.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is a fun game, and even I, a non-golfer, had a lot of fun playing. I think it has enough features for the casual golfer to enjoy and enough control for the golfing fan to feel like he's on the course while in the comfort of his home.