Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’07 IGN Hands-On Preview

EA hosted a demo event for the PSP version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’07 at the Cog Hill Golf Club, just outside of Chicago, and IGN gratefully accepted the invitation to get their hands on the title, oven if only for a short time. While that short play time didn’t leave any room to explore all the features of the latest addition to the Tiger Woods series, it still provided a chance for them to see a few of the new features in action.

The new Swing Path Meter provides feedback on the power and accuracy of the player’s swing. IGN found playing with the analog nub “surprisingly intuitive” and easy to get the hang of. To them the swing mechanism felt like a combination of the analog control of the present with the swing meter of the past (you know, the old-school one where you set the power on the “upswing” and set the accuracy on the “downswing”?).

They only had a chance to play the Cog Hill Course – in the game, not out on the real fairway – and the Shooting Gallery minigame, but both seemed enough for them to say that Tiger Woods 07 on the PSP “looked and felt almost as solid as the current-gen console version of the title.” IGN was particularly pleased with the short load times, especially compared to the first Tiger title on the system.

Shooting Gallery is revealed to be a minigame where the player breaks panes of glass with golf shots. A “nice, pick-up-and-play option when you don’t have the time to play Pebble,” says IGN.

The big new addition is the Career Mode that follows the new FedEx Cup. It kinds works differently than “traditional” career modes in the past, designed to provide “much-needed” rivalry and excitement to the game. Rather than scattered competitive events followed by the competition for the top prize itself, the career mode will have more of a “beginning, middle and end-of-season” feel to its progress.

Players will compete against more than 100 Tiger wannabes to earn regular season FedEx points, and only the top 30 will have a shot at the title. “Excitement” and “golf” together may feel rather unfamiliar to non-golf fans (try watching a whole game on ESPN!), but this mode revamp could inject that tension of fighting your way to the top into this title.

Other revealed features include online play and the EA-trademark create-your-own-player Game Face system.

EA hosted a demo event for the PSP version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’07 at the Cog Hill Golf Club, just outside of Chicago, and IGN gratefully accepted the invitation to get their hands on the title, oven if only for a short time. While that short play time didn’t leave any room to explore all the features of the latest addition to the Tiger Woods series, it still provided a chance for them to see a few of the new features in action.

The new Swing Path Meter provides feedback on the power and accuracy of the player’s swing. IGN found playing with the analog nub “surprisingly intuitive” and easy to get the hang of. To them the swing mechanism felt like a combination of the analog control of the present with the swing meter of the past (you know, the old-school one where you set the power on the “upswing” and set the accuracy on the “downswing”?).

They only had a chance to play the Cog Hill Course – in the game, not out on the real fairway – and the Shooting Gallery minigame, but both seemed enough for them to say that Tiger Woods 07 on the PSP “looked and felt almost as solid as the current-gen console version of the title.” IGN was particularly pleased with the short load times, especially compared to the first Tiger title on the system.

Shooting Gallery is revealed to be a minigame where the player breaks panes of glass with golf shots. A “nice, pick-up-and-play option when you don’t have the time to play Pebble,” says IGN.

The big new addition is the Career Mode that follows the new FedEx Cup. It kinds works differently than “traditional” career modes in the past, designed to provide “much-needed” rivalry and excitement to the game. Rather than scattered competitive events followed by the competition for the top prize itself, the career mode will have more of a “beginning, middle and end-of-season” feel to its progress.

Players will compete against more than 100 Tiger wannabes to earn regular season FedEx points, and only the top 30 will have a shot at the title. “Excitement” and “golf” together may feel rather unfamiliar to non-golf fans (try watching a whole game on ESPN!), but this mode revamp could inject that tension of fighting your way to the top into this title.

Other revealed features include online play and the EA-trademark create-your-own-player Game Face system.