Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online review

I’ve played about 20 games of Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online so far and here are my thoughts.  It’s very fun, but it seems to get somewhat boring unless you pay for the monthly ($9.99)/yearly ($59.99) subscription.   Without paying for the subscription, the game is completely free, but you only have access to two courses to play on.

Basically, as you play the game, you gain XP which advances your golfer’s rank.  When you accomplish different things on courses, you’ll earn achievements like getting a drive over 250 yards, first birdie, 20+ foot putt, etc.  You also earn virtual money so you can train your skills up (swing speed, timing, balance, vision, etc) which will allow you to drive the ball further, be more accurate while putting and so forth.  

There is also a “Pro Shop” where you can use your virtual money to buy new equipment.  Here is where the game gets somewhat “iffy” in my eyes.  When you “buy” your new equipment, you can only use it for a certain number of rounds before you need to buy it again.  So if you buy a shirt that gives you a bonus of 4 times the amount of money normally earned for a birdie, it’ll only give you the bonus for 5 rounds before you need to buy it again.

Now we come to the micro transaction part of the review.  You can buy points for the game if you want and it’s totally optional.  The costs are 1000 points for $10, 2500 for $20 and 5500 for 40.00.  Once you have points, you can buy the premium items (typically costing 50-80 points) in the Pro Shop, which happen to the be the best items you can buy in the game, but they still only last for about 15 rounds…so it’s a never ending real money sink if you want to keep the items.

 If you choose not to purchase a monthly or yearly subscription, you can also pay the “greens fee” and play a round on any course for 100-150 points depending on which course you want to play.

What’s nice about the game is that you play it all in a web browser over the internet (so yes, an internet connection is required).  No installing, no hard drive requirements, play on any computer.  I’ve played on 3 different computers and all of them have been able to play it without any problems.  I’ve played on my laptop with a terrible video card all the way up to my gaming PC at home.   Great experience all around and the game looked great on each one.

Playing multiplayer games is as easy as clicking create game, selecting the options and waiting for someone to join.  You can play with up to a maximum of 4 players online (including yourself).  Something I don’t like is the fact you can’t “invite” your friends into your game.  You pretty much need to create the game, tell them to refresh the open games list and look for your game.  Hopefully someone else doesn’t join your game before they get into it.

My final thoughts on Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online are it’s a great game if you aren’t going to be buying a console version of the game.  Honestly, you will need to buy the subscription if you want to seriously play it.  I consider the free version just a demo of Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online.  The two courses you have access to will get fairly old over time and buying points to play on courses will add up quickly.

Also, in the free version, the level cap is level 14.  You’ll need to play on 4 courses a fair amount to be able to achieve level 15, and obviously if you only have access to 2 courses without paying, its not possible.

Another thought I have, is that they should have more single player challenges if you are a subscriber.   In the console versions of the game you have Tiger Woods Challenges, etc.  It just feels like you don’t get enough content for the yearly subscription fee as you would from buying a console version of the game.   You can also play tournaments in this game, but I still think content is lacking as you can do this in any console version of the game.  This is just my opinion as someone who has played the hell out of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 and 10 on the PS3.

If you decide to play Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online my username is Nathias, feel free to add me.