Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 – PSP – Review

With EA’s sports franchises, we’ve
all come to expect some basic things from games. Most importantly, we expect an
incremental increase in gameplay modes and graphical quality from year to year.
Scratch that for Tiger Woods 09 for the PSP.

It’s bizarre, but the new Tiger has
actually cut modes from the 08 version on PSP. First, I’ll tell you
what’s in this game: EA Sports Cup allows you to play a short round of golf, PGA
Tour is a longer, more in depth tournament game scheduled around a calendar, and
Play Now is the customary “lets just play” mode. There is local, Ad Hoc play
with friends and a fairly deep character creation mode.

The character creation mode includes
physical customization, but it also refers to the “level up” system that is now
in place. As your character plays, he or she will gain experience for certain
skills. Like if she hit its close to the hole, she will get accuracy XP; knock
in a lock putt and she’ll get a putting bonus. It’s clever and it works well.

 

Now let’s go over what is not
in this game. All of the mini-games from last year have been given the axe. Why
would a developer ever remove game modes is beyond my comprehension. Tiger games
on other consoles feature Tiger Challenges with target shooting mini-games,
different play styles (skins, match play, and battle golf), and putting
tournaments. This year’s Wii version had an incredible array of mini-games from
capture-the-flag to a connect-four type game. But there is none of that on the
PSP version. Also, all of the club tuning and coaching mechanics from the
360/PS3/Wii versions have not been included.

Worst of all, the online play
present in last year’s game has also been cut. Heck, even the Wii version has
online play this year. With such a deep character creation mode that is in this
year’s PSP title, it’s a shame you can’t take those characters online to play.
Between this loss and the lack of challenge modes, this game’s replay value
couldn’t be lower.

Similarly, the gameplay has actually
been made harder. While you can swing by clicking, the game feels much better
with the analog nub. While the main swing works fine with it, the putting has
been downgraded. For one thing, it’s impossible to sink accurate putts.
Measuring the distance halfway on the analog meter is possible, but the stick is
just not accurate enough to get like 75% of a putt down. The swing should have
been slowed down like in previous games. While you may lose realism, you make up
for it with actually being able to play the game.


Review Scoring Details for Tiger Woods 09

Gameplay:
5.0
While the regular
swing mechanics are accurate enough, the putting is fundamentally broken. And
where are the challenge modes and online play?

Graphics:
7.5

The games visuals fare somewhat better than the gameplay. But occasional polygon
tearing will irritate. Overall, the game has a somewhat muted color palette,
that is especially evident in the perpetually gray sky.

Sound: 6.5
The announcers are very annoying and add nothing to the game. The music and
environmental noise is adequate.

Difficulty:
Medium

Mostly accessible for all levels.

Concept: 4.0
Charging full price for a game with half the features? Not a good idea.

Overall: 5.0
While Tiger 09 is still a mostly solid golf experience (the best on the PSP) I
cannot recommend this title over previous Tiger games. This game is a
significant step back in gameplay that lacks some of the most vital elements.