pavona21's Full Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for Xbox
Intro: Tiger WHOods?
It was 1997 when Tiger Woods changed professional golf forever. When he won his first major, the 1997 Masters, America fell in love with the young pro with the huge swing, and the game of golf. Similarly, Tiger woods changed that we looked at and played golf video games just two years later. Sure, there had been golf games in the past. There was Links golf for the PC, there was Mario golf for the gameboy, there was even EA’s own PGA Tour 199x golf series. But in all honesty, before Tiger Woods, mainstream gamers didn’t want to play golf. Using the Tiger Woods name and the emergence of new game modes and increased licensing though, golf has, over the years, become a formidable virtual sport. This year, EA Sports’ own Tiger Woods 2005 is supposed to raise the bar on an already successful franchise. Did EA hit is straight down to the pipes? Or is Tiger 2005 a slice into the water? Read in to find out…
Game Modes: 11/10-Best…Depth…Ever….
The biggest reason that Tiger 2005 is the new king of the links is its unprecedented game mode selection and replay value. We’ll start out with what we’ve been seeing in Tiger golf games for the last few years, otherwise known as the traditional games. Here you choose from a plethora of different game styles from match play, to stroke play, to practice. After choosing your style, you select which golfer you’ll use from EA’s impressive list of professionals. You’ll see familiar faces like VJ Singh, Jim Furyk, Tiger Woods, and John Daly. Finally, you select which golf course you would like to play. EA has put together another better than adequate list of golf courses this year, including new additions such as Sherwood CC, Fancourt, and Royal Troon North. You then play 18 rounds of golf, and of course, your score is kept track of. Aside from the different traditional games, you can also enter the crazy multiplayer golf menu. Here, you can play not so traditional games such as speed golf(fastest to the pin wins) and battle golf(winner of the hole takes a club out of his opponents bag) with another user. Finally, you can now take Tiger Woods 2005 online via Xbox live to see who’s really the number one player in the world.
Overall, this list would be probably be meaty enough if it stopped there, but we’ve only just begun. All and all, most of the replay value in Tiger 2005 comes from the new Legend Tour mode. This actually turns out to be a slight upgrade to last years world tour mode, where you progress through the game by beating each golfer in match play. Only this time, you’re working to unlock some of the greatest golfers that ever played the game. Take down Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player, among others, and you’ll get to a championship showdown with Tiger Woods himself. Also included in this menu is the PGA Season feature, where you take a golfer of your choice through an entire PGA tour regular season, trying to win as many tournaments as you can in hope of finishing at the top of the money list at year‘s end.
What ends up making the Legend Tour mode so much more rewarding though is that as you progress through it, you’re also able to level up the skills and equipment of your created golfer. This essentially adds RPG elements to already sufficient golf game for even more replay depth. Overall, the “create a golfer” feature is one of the most complex of its kind. You give your golfer a name, height, and build, and then completely calibrate his or her face in the new “Game-Face 2”. Here you can change everything about your golfer from the color of its skin, to the size of its nose, ears, and mouth, to its hair and facial hair. You can even add blemishes to your golfer’s face. After that, you can actually play around and change your golfer’s swing. You can tweak everything from your swing length, to where your left arm is at different points of the swing. Of course, if you want to skip this altogether, you can also just assign your golfer one of the default swings and move on.
After creating your golfer and winning a few matches or tournaments, you begin to earn money and sponsorships. You can spend these points to increase your golfer’s attributes(Power, spin, approach, putting), or to buy licensed, name brand golf clubs and apparel. Some of the famous brands included in this title are Nike, Calloway Golf, Taylor Made, Cleveland, Oakley, Tag Huer, Footjoy, and Dunlop. As you progress, you unlock better equipment and apparel, and soon your golfer may be as much as a stud as I am.
New, Notable Gameplay elements
Aside from its impressive list of game modes, Tiger 2005 has also installed a few fresh gameplay elements to keep loyalists of the series coming back for more. The new “Tiger Proofing” feature definitely headlines this list. Tiger Proofing allows you to create a new course or edit existing courses that “even Tiger Woods would fear”. Here, you can do things like narrow fairways, reduce green size, deepen bunkers, and increase rough length. With enough work, even the easiest courses in the game(Sawgrass, Pebble Beach), can become a nightmare for the best of players. Another feature attempting to add difficulty to a series that is well known for allowing players to shoot ridiculously low scores is the “tour difficulty” option. This is a nice new feature that makes this golf simulation a bit more realistic. With tour difficulty on, users must now read their own putts without the help of a caddy, and can’t use spin from rough or hazards.
Unfortunately though, they took one step forward and two steps back in terms of difficulty. Along with the addition of the tour difficulty option, EA also added a new “Tiger Vision” feature. Tiger Vision basically allows a player to “let” the computer putt for them in difficulty situations. Using Tiger Vision places a orange dot on the green when putting. All you need to do is move your aim icon over to the orange dot, putt the ball, and sink the shot. Don’t get me wrong, this is a cool feature with a nice cinematic effects to boot, but it simply makes the game too damn easy. Got a 125 foot putt that breaks 12 feet to the left and will fall 18 feet short? Should be a two or even three putt in real life, but with a quick use of one of your 4(way too many) tiger visions per round, you can sink it in one 100% of the time.
Controls: 9/10-Smacking your balls has never felt so smooth
There really isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said about the control system of Tiger 2005, considering that EA hasn’t really tweaked it for 3 years now. You simply pull the left analog stick back to get into your back swing, and push the analog stick forward to rip the ball. Spin and power and controlled using the black and white buttons, and club selection can be toggled using the trigger buttons. The only real problem that I can see with the controls is that they are a bit too forgiving on the xbox console. Pushing and pulling the ball is a little too uncommon in this game, which once again, keeps the difficulty a little too low.
Graphics: 9/10-Solid, like my stiff shaft Tiger 2005 is one game that really manages to show off the beauty of nature, without ever making gamers deal with the snow, sleet, rain, and tornadoes that nature can throw at you. Everything from the oceans of Pebbles Beach, to the forests of sawgrass, to the old school sculpting of Royal look truly divine here, showcasing just the right amount of lighting and texturing. Also featured are life like, real time shadow effects that come and go based on the angle of the camera and the sun. And the sun truly does take an important role in this game's graphics. You'll see a glare effect through the camera angles at time, reflections off the water hazards, and brightness turning to darkness as the clouds cover the course. The background animation will truly make any avid golfer wish that they had the opportunity to play some of these courses. Sadly though, very few people reading this review(and the person writing it), can’t afford to play any of these courses. Save yourself a greens fee, play the video game version.
The player animation is also quite personalized and complex. Each player has their own swing, and variety of many movements. For example, players stretch and warm up as they get ready to hit a shot. Along with this though, you'll see Justin Leonard show off his signature "side swing" follow through, and laugh at Jim Furyk's goofy motions. The player faces are also nicely constructed. Each player, real and fictional has their own distinct look, and all of the work they put into to Tiger Woods' face can easily be noticed. Of course, who could forget the signature cardboard standup background and crowd in every Tiger game since 2001. EA, if you’re listening, I’ve been ranting about this for years, please fix it. It’s 2005, and it’s time to make your next Tiger fully 3d. Last but not least, Tiger 2005 shows off an increased amount of great cinematic visuals, giving users the ability to view a plethora of cool camera angles when a ball is being struck.
Audio: 8/10-Golf with attitude
Golf isn't the most energetic and loud game on the planet. That considered though, EA has done the best they can with what they have to work with. The commentary is done by professionals David Feherty and Bill Macatee who essentially adhere to the rules of their profession by showing emotion from time to time, but also using a lot of the "golf whisper". Some of the commentary is a bit repetitive, and they could have done a bit better, but when it comes to golf, these are 2 of the main men in the business. There are also some subtle and peaceful sound effects that vary from course to course. You'll hear the waves hitting the rocky beach at Pebble Beach, birds chirping, and leaves rustling in the wind, along with a "thwack" every time a club makes contact with the ball. EA has also installed its EA Trax line into Tiger. It’s not nearly as good here as it was in Fight Night 2004, but the good mix between rock, rap, and alternative should make all kinds of gamers smile.
Overall: 9/10-Still the best on the market
As we speak, there are only three certainties in life; death, taxes, and that each year, the new Tiger Woods game becomes the best golf game ever. I said it in 2003, I said it in 2004, and I’m saying it again in 2005. It’s a level of consistency that is unparalleled in all of video games. That’s not to say that this title can’t be improved though. Really, EA has to do a better of job in the future of making its Tiger games more difficult and frustrating like golf really is. That’s really all that’s holding this game from being a perfect ten in my mind. Either way, sports gamers of any kind, and especially fans of golf should pick this game up right now. All and all, another great effort from EA sports.
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