Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 review

Sept 25, 2007

While there have been DS golf games in the past that tried to utilize the unique stylus and touch screen we sometimes love and sometimes hate, the truth is that most of them sucked. You were expecting a golf reference there, weren't you? Something like they "triple bogeyed" or "splashed into the water hazard"? Nope. They just sucked. However, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 doesn't suck. It's actually quite good. Or, if you prefer, it sinks a hole-in-one.

The stylus controls are simple and intuitive, as they should be. You place the tip of the stylus on the club head, pull back for your backswing, and then swish forward to launch the ball skyward and hopefully toward the hole. If you push forward faster, you'll hit harder, and if your pull-back and follow-through is angled slightly to the right or left, your shot will curve. And if you still don't feel the love for the stylus controls, you can switch back to the traditional two-click or three-click swing systems that golf games have used since time began. Golf game time, at least. Which is a very nice touch.

It feels great, too, though we do have a couple quibbles. Because the screen is so small, even tiny deviations in your swing motion make big differences, and therefore have exaggerated effects. Also, while we were okay with rubbing the screen to induce ball spin, it doesn't seem to work as well as we'd expect. Other than that, it's all golden, and the fact that you can do literally everything with the stylus, from aiming to changing clubs to switching camera views, is much appreciated.