For PlayStation 2 owners, this has been a year focused on God of War II and RPGs. That lineup is quickly expanding with mainstream games like Buzz! The Mega Quiz that are aimed at getting Grandma to pick up a PS2. Among the highlights are the expected sports updates, some of which are turning out better than the 05, 06, and 07 editions.

Tiger Woods 08, the zillionth golf game for PS2, comes to Sony’s 44-million-selling machine with nearly everything you loved about last year’s game. And nearly everything you loved about the version before that. Those who were expecting an overhaul have come to the wrong place. That will have to wait for a next-gen version sometime in the future. But if you like tweaks and can’t wait to take on another Tiger Challenge, stick around – Tiger Woods 08 has all that and a bag of golf balls.

Newness

Players that have never touched a Tiger Woods game before may be cool with purchasing a sequel that doesn’t offer any new content. The rest of us, however, would feel like a ball that’s mistakenly hit the water – cold, abandoned, and hoping that egg-eating fish don’t mistake us for dinner. To prevent our plight, EA has included a new meter that measures each player’s confidence, which can increase or decrease the difficulty of any given shot. Skills (attributes), the risk level of the shot, and the past success (or lack thereof) with each shot and hole determines your overall confidence rating. It’s a mishmash of elements that can only be heightened by playing skillfully.

That’s not to say you can’t screw up. You can and well – this is golf, the hardest turn-based sport on the planet, remember? But you’ll worry more about your performance knowing that it could negatively impact your success down the road. This is quite different from the usual sports game mindset where skills/attributes are typically the only things that matter. But in Tiger Woods 08, they are just one of four elements involved.

If you suck all the time, don’t fret – the game isn’t going to pound on players too harshly. There’s always a chance to come back. The best way to play is to get to know the controls, the courses, different wind types (which are never the same twice in a row), and how each of these could hinder your progress. I’ve won by default when opponents hit a water hazard that allowed me to score higher, and I’ve won by luck from a birdie that was never expected to go in. But my highest and most consistent scores came after I planned each shot according to each variable.

Putty In Your Hand

Putting can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. It can help you make par when only a bogey seemed possible, or cause you to exceed the shot limit.

Tiger Woods 08 takes off some of the pressure with a new trial-and-error feature called Putt Preview. With it, players can test a few shots (as many as you like until the time runs out) before making an official attempt. Press X to bring up the Putt Preview meter, which immediately starts counting down. Your time carries over from hole to hole, so don’t spend too much time experimenting. In most cases, I was able to land the shot within a couple of tries. If I couldn’t get it that quickly, it typically wasn’t possible for me to make the shot from my position. A more skilled player may have been able to pull it off. But with varying factors affecting every shot (wind, steepness, etc.), even the best players are likely to mess up.

The More Things Change…

“The more they stay the same.” Nope, not here. The controls, camera angles, replays, and game presentation are virtually unchanged from last year’s game. Tiger Woods 08’s character models look like they were taken from a previous iteration (all things considered, they probably were). There was once a time when the graphics were thought of as being amazingly realistic, but the PS3 and Xbox 360 editions pretty much squash that thought.

Traditional and mini-game modes are unchanged. The season mode is new for the year but is the same in concept and execution. You’ll get something different out of the Tiger Challenge, whose lineup is different from the last game but contains many of the same challenge types.

What this amounts to is a game that isn’t significantly different from Tiger Woods 07. I know there are many gamers out there who don’t yet have a next-gen console, but if you want the best Tiger Woods experience, don’t settle for anything less – even if that means waiting to play it.

Gameplay: 7.2
The Putt Preview is great – even better than the scaled-down preview in the PS3 version. The Confidence Meter is another worthwhile addition, but neither makes Tiger Woods 08 so special and unique that you should rush out and buy the game ASAP.

Graphics: 5.7
With no new graphical enhancements to speak of (and some weird camera angles that detract from the game), the PS2 Tiger Woods games are really starting to show their age.

Sound: 6.0
Tiger Woods 08’s commentary is actually worse on the PS3 version than it is on PS2. Either that or my ears had been experiencing a recession after playing the PS3 version, causing the PS2 version to seem less annoying. The dance music, however, is still inappropriate for this kind of a game.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
The game isn’t as challenging – or feel as big or realistic – as its next-gen sibling.

Concept: 6.3
With fewer additions than its next-gen counterparts, Tiger Woods 08 feels less fresh on PS2. It does, however, have a superior Putt Preview mode.

Multiplayer: 6.8
Pretty much the same as Tiger Woods 07.

Overall: 6.9
Given that the Confidence Meter is a conceptual element (you can’t actually touch the meter), the only physical gameplay difference is the Putt Preview. But unless you don’t have the other Tiger Woods games or must own every single update, the Putt Preview is not enough to warrant a purchase. This is still a good game. But it’s one we’ve been playing for the past several years.