Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004

"The best just got better."

If ever there was a game that deserved the Spinal Tap-esque rating of 11, it's this one. Let's just get this out of the way at the top: The Tiger Woods golf series has no peer. No other golf game on any console comes close to the greatness EA and Headgate Studios have managed to put together over the past 3 years, culminating with TW2004. There. Now stop reading this and go buy or rent the game.

Alright, so you can't just say a game is the best and not back it up, right? Well here's a list of why Tiger Woods 2004 is unmatched in its greatness. And also a list of things that would help EA continue its dominance over the competition (as well as improve the game for its consumers):

Under Par

- Far and away the best swing mechanism in any console (or PC) golf game ever conceived. Notice I didn't include arcade game. I still think the track ball in Golden Tee Golf is awesome. The analog swing is brilliantly implemented, and I've never introduced anyone to this game that wished it had the archaic and downright silly click-click-click method after playing with the analog stick for 5 minutes.

- The best combination of sim and arcade golf ever seen. If you've never played the game, you should know that you have the option of applying spin after the shot is made. Very arcadey, but also makes it very fun. Don't like it? Don't toggle it on. Otherwise the game strives, and succeeds, at being a great sim of the game of golf. Improved in 2004 are sidehill lies and how they affect your shot.

- The best collection of characters. Sure, if you want cutesy characters we all know and love, get Mario Golf. If you want the stupidest characters ever conceived in a golf game, get Hot Shots Golf 3 (read: pure unadulterated crap). If you want to play as or against players on the actual PGA Tour, this is your best choice. And this is the only game that includes the greatest golfer in the game today: Tiger.

- Gameface. How the heck did we ever live without this? In TW2002 and TW2003, I played as Tiger Woods. Why? I wanted to be the best. Well, no more. Now I just want to beat the best using the best golfer in the history of the world...me. That's right, with the Gameface tool you can create a carbon copy of yourself, and then use that creation on the Tour, online, or in the many other game modes included. The amount of detail is stunning, and your players resemblance to yourself is limited only by your artistic skills. And then, if you're like me, after you've created this clone, you'll then go to the pro shop and pimp him out with cool jewelry, clothing, hats, finger tape, hair dye, etc. etc. The amount of stuff to buy numbers in the thousands. In past TW games, my goal was to earn money to increase my stats (Tiger Woods the RPG), which you can still do, but you also have incentive to blow your dough in the Pro Shop trying to accessorize your clothes with your clubs. At the moment, my character could use a visit from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fivesome. I have golden diamond-encrusted teeth, a big silver chain, silver earings, silver rings on my fingers, and the pimpinest golf shoes you've ever seen. Your options are limitless in how you want your character to look. The manner in which EA implemented all this is nothing short of brilliant. My one complaint is that height doesn't factor into it. Everyone in the game is the same height apparently.

- The best collection of courses: There are 20 courses in the game. Let me say that again: THERE ARE 20 COURSES IN THE GAME! You can take the competition, cull all their courses, and you still won't match the total number of courses in TW2004. And with 20 courses, you'd expect a bunch of throw-away courses. Nope, nuh-uh. There's 6 brilliantly designed fantasy courses, and 14 world-class, world famous golf courses. Want to play at Pebble Beach? Go ahead. How about the legendary St. Andrews? Sure, tee it up. 14 freakin' real world courses. Awesome. New to this year's game are:
Bethpage Black(!!!), Pinehurst 2, Kapalua Plantation, Bay Hill, and Sahalee. I've only played one of these in real life (Sahalee), and I can tell you that the design and implementation of the course in the game is scarily accurate. The fantasy courses up the difficulty and give the developers a chance to be creative both in locale, and in hole layout. Lots of great stuff to be had here. There's even a 3 hole shootout from one of the coolest courses in the world, Sherwood Country Club, which hopefully is a preview of a course to come in 2005.

- A real PGA tour mode! Finally a game with PGA in the title has an actual tour mode. Basically there's a 10 year calendar of PGA events that you can enter, saving after each round if you choose. Good stuff for sure.

- Tiger Challenge is still here, it's now called World Tour though. It's a good way to earn money to pimp out your character further and to boost his or her stats to god-like levels. There's also the requisite stroke play, match play, etc etc. Many new multiplayer modes have been added as well. The best of the new bunch is battle golf, where if you win a hole, you can steal a club out of your opponents bag, or take one back that he stole from you. The game also uses your console's calendar to bring you special events. If you're familiar with Animal Crossing, you'll know what I'm talking about. For example, on Halloween there will be a special scenario for you to play in, which if you win, you'll earn a Halloween-inspired golf shirt for your player to wear.

- Online play. On the PS2, you get online play. Whoohoo. It's about time. EA hosts daily tournaments at courses of their choosing, with game settings of their choosing as well (wind speed, rough depth, pin locations etc). There's also head-2-head match play, battle golf, and stroke play. If you have broadband, you can talk as you play. All your stats are recorded when the game ends, and you can view your rankings online in the game or on EA's own website.

Over Par

- Online play is only 2 people at a time. Golf is made for foursomes, EA, get your act together and let us play best ball online.

- The putting grid. EA listened to us and implemented a putting grid this year. The only problem is they did it half-assed. It could be much better.

- Because of Nintendo's inept decision to go with tiny proprietary discs, all of TW 2004 won't fit on one disc, so if you play this on the Gamecube you'll need to get up and swap discs. Thanks, Nintendo!

- EA doesn't control online tournaments well enough. Online tournaments should have the ability to restrict everyone to using the same character with the same attributes. That would be a better gauge of who is the best than allowing any idiot to simply choose Tiger Woods every time. EA also lets people play the tournament over and over and over until they get a score they like. That's downright lame.

That's it. Now run out and buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/03