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I am not usually a fan of sports games, but so I was surprised when I loaded up Tiger Woods 2008 and actually enjoyed it. TW 2008 is one of the most intuitive games I have ever played, if you know a little about the principals of golf it should take a few minutes before you start to see some respectable results. That is not to say that the game is without its challenges, far from it.
Playing a course without much wind is a relatively simple affair. If the wind is blowing at under 5 mph, you do not really have to adjust for it; you just point and shoot. When the wind starts howling is when it starts to get interesting. Different clubs will send the ball to different heights and the ball will react differently. A drive might not get blown around too much, but get a shot up there with the sand wedge and it will move. It is all part of the fun and of the learning experience.
Your swing is determined by the smoothness of your mousing action and any deviation that occurs. I use a Razer Lachesis which is fully programmable and I am guessing it is possible to effectively cheat by turning the sensitivity of the horizontal axis down. The timing is perhaps the toughest part to master, I am constantly fast, slightly fast or very fast on the down swing.
I was initially disappointed with the graphics. I thought I had turned them up to make use of my 8800GTX. The simple high setting still had a grainy picture, which was unimpressive to say the least. The menu layout in this regard is quite poor. In the advanced settings tab you will find all of the tweaks that you need. If you crank up the resolution you will be able to set things to very high and enjoy some fine looking graphics.
Game play is smooth, if a little slow, but then golf is a slow sport. There is enough variation in the commentary to avoid sending you mad and the commentators do offer helpful tips that might improve your on-green play. I love the fact that you can save this between holes, so it is possible to have a five or ten minute gaming session that is satisfying. It is not as much of a time waster as an FPS or RPG which you need to spend at least twenty minutes immersing yourself in just to get started.
All in all this was an impressive game and one to which I will return many times. It loads quickly and shuts down quickly which is always an enormous plus. I have yet to try it online and don’t really have much interest in doing so. I like my FPS games online, this is more of a one player affair for me. I give this one 4.5 out of 5.0, it is simply the best sports game that I have played in a long time (excluding Wii tennis of course).
Image Source: Trusted Reviews
Tags: speaker, mobile devices, gps, TV
