So the EA servers came back up sporadically and I was able - after about an hour - to upload a couple of head shots to download and render in Tiger Woods '08. Results were slightly less than stellar but I'm fairly impressed. Hair was not transferred over at all, which is disappointing because there is a lack of hair options in-game.

My facial hair was not brought over completely, but that's OK, because I swear they saw my beard before and built it directly into the game. The most important thing is that my digital self doesn't look like he's 40 years old anymore. The eyes and brow were the most difficult to nail down doing things manually; this has now been resolved.

I'm far too lazy to take some photos right now but they will come eventually. Progress in the game is coming along well; it's important to do a few Tiger Challenges first and then tackle the tournaments. Because the tournaments are so tough when you are first starting out, it's difficult to build up enough cash to buy some good equipment, which is where the Challenges come into play. These are do-able and net some good rewards. Buy better equipment then try to place in the top ten of a weekend tournament.

I don't suspect that it's possible for me to obtain all the achievements during the first PGA season, so I'm looking forward to a bit of an extended play in attempts to obtain those precious, useless points. That is, if I don't bore of the game first.

It's all started again: Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08. Mike bought an iteration of this game a few years ago and we were completely hooked, and it's now time to take up the controller again for the latest version.

I've played in my first tournament and came in eigth place, which is not overly impressive. Is the game harder? It must be the level where my character is at: in the previous version (2005, I think) my fond memories come from a much later point in the game where my character could crush any ball and was scoring a birdie practically every hole. I really look forward to hitting that point in this game.

What really impressed me about the older version was the character creation and how much detail you could get in on your model. Mike and I made characters that looked exactly like us, which really helped our immersion and experience. Unfortunately I cannot get my new character to look exactly like me: as if there are fewer options for tweaking appearance in this game. While it's quite impressive, my Mii looks more like me than this character, and I've probably spent a couple of hours on him already.

And perhaps it's all because of a new feature they've put into place, which is the photo game face. This allows you to download two high resolution photos of yourself, mark it up and let the game model your face into 3D. Unfortunately the servers on EA have been down since the game came out so I haven't had an opportunity to test it out, but apparently it's quite slick. I'll post comparison images whenever EA gets their act together.