Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07

Oh those hot Sunday afternoons down the pitch and putt with the lads. Never has there been such rivalry and hazing on a golf course. All rules are thrown out as we played for the right of King of the Course. Nine hole par three was really as far as my professional career went, loosing so many balls to the hedges and roads of the surrounding houses became too costly, so finding a suitable replacement was important. All of the golf games on other consoles in the past were OK, however they never brought anything new the genre, same old looks and in the end it was pretty much hit button A to swing, hit button A to release and hit button A again to get the angle. I’m sure you agree, not much fun in the end. Well it looks like EA have taken note at how stale the genre has become and made some very important changes.

The opening screen has Tiger himself doing keepie-uppie with his club and a ball, almost taunting you to have a go and knock him from his golfing legend status.

Here you are able to design your own player and decide if you want to have some initial training or go straight into the game.

The training is one of the best I have come across in a game, with full speech to explain why you use a certain club and approaches all of which is excellent for a new starter to the sport or if you just want to get used to the new control system.

Once you have finished in this area you are taken to the main menu of the game. There you find plenty of different modes to choose from, the main one is the career mode which takes you through 5 seasons of the PGA Tour towards the ultimate prize the FedEx Cup Championship.

Tiger Challenge pitches you head to head against the best golfers in the world. Every win against a golfer earns you money and skills that enable you to purchase new items from the Pro Shop.

Alongside the main challenge are the Training Challenges. If you feel your player is lacking in a certain skill, you are able to go to the training holes and improve on 1 of your 9 skills.

Away from the main challenge there are also 19 other styles of play to attempt. There are the usual additions to the golfing genre, stoke play, matchplay, putting contests and targets. You also have a few new additions, Battlegolf has you play one of the 12 courses, the winner of each hole is able to remove a club from the other players bag or add one back to his own. This really makes the game interesting as trying to make shots with a club missing really makes for some fun and challenging games.

There is also Greensome, where you have a two on two game, and you decide who had the best drive from your team and you play from there.

I really enjoyed single player mode on this title, it had enough variation to keep me coming back, however online is where this game really shines. You are able to play against other people at a similar level to you, this ensures that the game is fair and that you do not get played off the course. There are also EA sponsored tournaments where you all play to set rules and conditions to ensure a level playing field.

A great touch to the online mode is the ESPN on demand. This provides an ESPN sports ticker for all of the latest sports scores and news and also plays continually updated radio pod casts.

The controls to the game are the best and most natural I have come across for a golf game. The left stick represents your swing, pull back to swing and push forward to release the shot. If you require draw of fade then you pull back at an angle and push to the opposite side. This action is represented really well on the screen and after a while you learn that each club has its own sweet spot to get the best out of them. The right stick allows for control of the angle you address the ball, from underneath gives back spin and from the top give more distance and some top spin. You are given a great feel of control over your character and this brings you more into the game, making those missed shots hurt that little bit more, but when you sink a long putt it wont just be your player celebrating.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 by EA Sports is a great game, to the point where I cant really find any faults with it. Its got 12 courses, each hole beautifully represented, plenty of different play types, great player animations, very short loading times between courses, great atmosphere and a great challenge. I understand that golf is not for everybody, but if your looking for a new sports game then this is definitely worth your time.