Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

A pet peeve of mine is games that rely on unlockable content. As a casual gamer, I don't want to be forced to jump thru hoops just to access a game I have already paid for.
This game forces you to play a huge number of dull, repetitive minigames to unlock a single course. The minigames only come in a couple flavors so you will have to jump essentially the same hoops over and over, just to get one new course to play. Simply put, opening courses to play is a chore and only the hardcore golf fan is going to wade thru hours of boring nonsense just to get another course. Like me, most casual gamers will unlock a few courses and just accept playing those rather than bother getting the rest. With the new version of the game out, I still haven't unlocked all of 09. For that reason I won't even bother with the new version.
The graphics and gameplay are spectacular. This is by far the best golf series ever to represent the sport. You cannot take gameplay away from it. My only complaint is that half the game is locked away at the start and opening the rest is no fun.
The canned soundbites of the announcers will have you muting the game quickly.
The various types of games and challenges are plentiful, and give alot of replay value outside of the context of the main golfing game. Online play is superb. Finding a match is simple, easy, and fun. It's one of the few games I do play online. The pro series 'campaign' is overly easy I found with Woods himself often hitting 5 strait into a water trap.
If not for the fact that this game is under lock and key so badly unless you invest massive amounts of time in very un-fun minigames, I would have given it a ten.
But given that you are really forced to drag the game out to get courses is inexcusable to me. This is an artificial way to make the game seem 'bigger' than it really is.
And when I pay for a game, I do not want to be told I can only play part of it right away.
Lose the unlockables, developers!!!!!