Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005

"A solid golfing sim for the Gamecube"

This is one of the better games among the EA Sports line-up I've played in a while. The GC version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 doesn't distinguish it much from the other versions. The Xbox version which I've played before this, was beautiful graphics wise and controller wise. However, I've also played the PS2 version but it suffers with long load times, jagged graphics and a terrible analog stick (this game has a heavy emphasise on the analog stick). Then I bought the GC version of this game because the Xbox and PS2 versions were all gone. This game fits perfectly between the PS2 version and the Xbox version in terms of greatness. Anyways, this is solid golfing experience. It's a pretty big game too, lots of modes, options, and what not (so big that it comes on two GC discs).

Graphics- In terms of graphics, it's above average. It clearly resembles the PS2 version's graphics but it just looks a little cleaner. The golf courses themselves look great, grass looks great, trees, golfballs, tees, water... all of it looks great. The character models however clearly present fine detail in the faces, bodies and such. Hell, there's an extremely detailed and complex create a player mode where you can tweak just about every little aspect of your character. Just stuff like adding moles, scars, and wrinkles make it really neat. There's nice camera angles I guess, whenever there's a putt or shot that will land near or into the hole, it will go into a slow motion sequence with a heart beat sound. Nice little stuff there but its not eye candy or anything. Just a little above standard quality graphics.
7.5/10

Sound- Hmm... there's not much to say here. There is licensed music, such as "The Way You Move" by Outkast but really it's just ordinary standard sound. The crowd noises are there and there's a boring commentator that, well, commentates during gameplay. Tiger himself does voice overs for the in-game tutorial which I guess is okay.
7/10

Controls- Ahhh... controls to near perfection. What makes this game different from every other golfing game is that this game uses "analog swing" where you control your swing with the analog stick. The GC controller's analog stick is perfect though, it is better than the lackluster PS2 analog stick. You can also use the C stick to swing. Depending on how hard you tap the analog stick forward when it's held back, the ball will swung further or shorter. To power up your swing, you can repeatitly tap the Z button on the controller. And on screen it will indicate how far you should swing your club back, so if it says 75% you are supposed to hold the analog stick back only until your golfer holds the club back 75% of the way that it can and then you have to quickly swing the stick forward to get an accurate shot. It may sound confusing but once you play it and learn it in the tutorial, it's a breeze. A new feature added this year is controlling the spinnage of the ball while it's in air. So by repeatitly tapping the Z button (again) while holding the analog stick in the direction you want it to, you can control the ball towards to the hole a little more. This is kind of awkward since the Z button wasn't exactly meant ot be the one button that you mash like crazy. So in a nutshell, this game has the best golf game controls.
9.5/10

Gameplay- Now here is where the game really shines. Like I stated before, the analog swing is taken into full effect. You can accurately swing and position your golfer/club on the course. The game has 12 golf courses total which is well more than enough. A neat feature in this game is called GameFace 2, which lets you completely customize your character. In fact, I spent 2 hours trying to make my character look exactly like me. I kept taking pictures and such on my cell phone, man, and my friends came over and they saw me playing as my character and they were like "Hey, he looks just like you!" and I said "Yeah, it is me!". That's pretty much how detailed you can customize your character. Swingining on fairway, putting on the green, all done to perfection. Putting does provide some challenge though. There's a little indicater that you must use and you also receive caddy tips which tell you where you should aim ot shoot and you must do all off of assumption. This makes putting in the game a lot harder than other games which give you a nice grid overlay. But still, I like a challenge and I've mastered it anyway. And of course you can select any club weather you need a sand wedge or a 3 wood its all there for when you need it. Great wholesome fun gameplay that will keep you playing this for months.
10/10

-Pros-
Great golf simulation
Excellent analog swing
Best "swinging on the fairway" ever in a game
Great putting system
A very thorough and complex "Create a Player" mode
"The Way you Move" by Outkast... (ok maybe not)
-Cons-
Game is on two discs so you have to switch discs when you select certain modes
Awkward Z button setting for ball spin

Final Score: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/05