With EA’s sports franchises, we’ve all come to expect some basic things from games. Most importantly, we expect an incremental increase in gameplay modes and graphical quality from year to year. Scratch that for Tiger Woods 09 for the PSP.

It’s bizarre, but the new Tiger has actually cut modes from the 08 version on PSP. First, I’ll tell you what’s in this game: EA Sports Cup allows you to play a short round of golf, PGA Tour is a longer, more in depth tournament game scheduled around a calendar, and Play Now is the customary “lets just play” mode. There is local, Ad Hoc play with friends and a fairly deep character creation mode.

The character creation mode includes physical customization, but it also refers to the “level up” system that is now in place. As your character plays, he or she will gain experience for certain skills. Like if she hit its close to the hole, she will get accuracy XP; knock in a lock putt and she’ll get a putting bonus. It’s clever and it works well.

Now let’s go over what is not in this game. All of the mini-games from last year have been given the axe. Why would a developer ever remove game modes is beyond my comprehension. Tiger games on other consoles feature Tiger Challenges with target shooting mini-games, different play styles (skins, match play, and battle golf), and putting tournaments. This year’s Wii version had an incredible array of mini-games from capture-the-flag to a connect-four type game. But there is none of that on the PSP version. Also, all of the club tuning and coaching mechanics from the 360/PS3/Wii versions have not been included.

Worst of all, the online play present in last year’s game has also been cut. Heck, even the Wii version has online play this year. With such a deep character creation mode that is in this year’s PSP title, it’s a shame you can’t take those characters online to play. Between this loss and the lack of challenge modes, this game’s replay value couldn’t be lower.

Similarly, the gameplay has actually been made harder. While you can swing by clicking, the game feels much better with the analog nub. While the main swing works fine with it, the putting has been downgraded. For one thing, it’s impossible to sink accurate putts. Measuring the distance halfway on the analog meter is possible, but the stick is just not accurate enough to get like 75% of a putt down. The swing should have been slowed down like in previous games. While you may lose realism, you make up for it with actually being able to play the game.

Gameplay: 5.0
While the regular swing mechanics are accurate enough, the putting is fundamentally broken. And where are the challenge modes and online play?

Graphics: 7.5
The games visuals fare somewhat better than the gameplay. But occasional polygon tearing will irritate. Overall, the game has a somewhat muted color palette, that is especially evident in the perpetually gray sky.

Sound: 6.5
The announcers are very annoying and add nothing to the game. The music and environmental noise is adequate.

Difficulty: Medium
Mostly accessible for all levels.

Concept: 4.0
Charging full price for a game with half the features? Not a good idea.

Overall: 5.0
While Tiger 09 is still a mostly solid golf experience (the best on the PSP) I cannot recommend this title over previous Tiger games. This game is a significant step back in gameplay that lacks some of the most vital elements.