Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004

"Worst. Putting Game. Ever."

I'll be honest up front, I've never played any previous versions of Tiger Woods Golf. However, with my beloved Swing Away Golf for the Playstation 2 finally starting to show its age, I figured it was about time for an upgrade. I had originally planned on waiting for both Tiger Woods and Links 2004, and then checking them both out to decide which was better. Then I heard that Tiger Woods 2004 had close to 20 golf courses in it, and I decided not to wait. There was no way I could pass up that many holes. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake. Tiger Woods 2004 is not a bad game, per se. It's just not the GREAT game that everyone else is making it out to be.

I gave this game an overall score of a 6.75. However, this IS an average of the various areas I take into account, and it's misleadingly high. After all, the most important aspect of any game is play control. As I discuss below, for all of this game's considerable strengths, it falls terribly short in this one key area. Seen all the websites and magazines fawning over this game? Read below for the real deal.

Graphics - 8/10
This game looks fairly pretty. Real-life courses are depicted with painstaking accuracy. Pebble Beach in particular is remarkable. On all the courses, the pitch looks great, the sky inviting, the trees look good enough to climb. If you are playing at a seaside course, the surf pounding the shore looks extremely good. There are also nice little touches, like birds, squirrels, or even deer in the background. Every once in a while, a car will drive by far off in the distance. These supporting visuals are well used. They are subtle and only occur occasionally. This is better than beating the player over the head with ''Look at Me!'' levels of detail.

The fictional courses are a mixed bag. Most of them are in fairly bizarre environments (castle ruins in the Scottish Highlands, for example), which kind of takes you out of the game. In a title like this, you don't necessarily expect to tee off from on top of a watchtower, or have to shoot a drive around volcanic outcroppings.

Most of the golfers look great, particularly (of course) Tiger himself.

Sound - 8/10
Out on the links, this game sounds very good. The ambient sounds effects, such as chirping birds, rustling leaves, or the pounding surf all sound great. The commentary is pretty good, although it only takes a few rounds before it starts to get repetitive.

As for the music... ugh. This is a golf game. Why the heck does it have a mixed hip hop/alternative soundtrack?! This may be the most inappropriate music selection ever, and it cost the game a few points in this review.

Play control - 3/10
This game is more frustrating than the real thing! Hey EA! Putting is a part of golf too! A big part! I'm not lying when I say I've never in my life seen a more shallow, inaccurate, and poorly implemented putting mechanism in a golf video game. Here's how it works. You get on the green. You wait for a few seconds while text in a little black box says ''analyzing green''. Then, it says something like ''aim 7 inches left and 3 foot 5 inches short.'' Or whatever numbers are appropriate to the ball location. That's it. It's up to you to decide exactly where to put the putting cursor. You get no point of reference, no scale to indicate whether you just moved the cursor 2 inches or 8 inches, and the putting break line disappears as soon as you move the cursor. About all you can do is move the cursor in the general direction indicated and pray the ball drops. 4 out of 5 times, it will not. Truly awful, and frankly, truly inexcusable.

Using draw or fade can be problematic as well. You drive the ball by pulling back on the analog stick, and then pushing forward. Very simple on paper and in execution. It's very easy to boom 300 yard drives in this game, as long as they are straight. However, to hook or slice, you must draw the stick back slightly to diagonal, and then push forward to the opposite diagonal. Problem is, the analog stick just doesn't seem sensitive enough. It will either not register that you are attempting to draw the ball, or else it will wildly overcompensate, sending the ball flying on some horrifying bell curve that ends up dropping the ball about 60 yards to the left or right of where you wanted it.

This might also be a good time to bring up the fact that the game cheats (a common occurrence in EA Sports titles, particularly the NFL and NHL last minute miracle rallies). Don't believe me? Fire up a practice round, and take a shot at a par 3. You very well may sink a hole-in-one. Now go to the same hole in a tournament. Assuming the same wind conditions, the same tee, the same pin placement, and the same club in your hand, and that you make the exact same shot, there is a heck of a good chance you will not even find the green. It's really frustrating when you know what club to use, and how to use it, but the game decides to send your ball sailing into the salad bar because it's decided you need more of a challenge.

Depth/Playability - 8/10
Here is where the game manages to redeem itself somewhat. It starts with Gameface, an excellent little feature that you should expect to see in every new EA Sports title from now until the end of time. It's easily the most robust character creation program I've seen outside of the WWE Smackdown games. And frankly, the avatars that you produce using Gameface look about 10 times better than anything you could hope to do with Smackdown.

There are two main modes of play: World Tour and PGA Tour. World Tour takes you all around the globe for about 30 matches between real and fictional golfers on real and fictional courses. The rounds are all match play, which tends to get kind of boring after a while. However, there is some really good prize money to be earned here. Around the level 3 challenges (out of 4 levels), the matches start to get fairly difficult, almost to the point of being frustrating. You'll want to scream when you opponent sinks his 11th birdie in a row. Gimme a break, even the best players in the world goof up sometimes.

The PGA Tour mode consists of up to 10 years of PGA events. These are all Thursday through Sunday events, like in real life. As in World Tour mode, there is some serious cash to be made here. It does take longer to earn however, due to the 4 round structure.

Yet another mode is the compelling Real Time Event mode. Basically steered by the console's internal calendar, special event matches pop up on holidays, golfer birthdays, and a few other days that EA threw in to mix things up a bit. Most of these matches are about 6 holes in length, and the prize is usually a small sum of money and some new items unlocked in the pro shop.

Other modes you would expect are also included, such as: practice, stroke play, match play, skins matches, and best ball foursome.

There are also some ''arcade'' style matches, such as battle golf or speed golf. I found them to be gimmicky, and don't really think they add too much to the game.

Once you've played a few rounds of World Tour or PGA Tour, take that hard won cash to the pro shop. Here are nearly a thousand shoes, shirts, pants, jackets, hats, caps, watches, jewelry, hair dye, lucky rubber bands, clubs, shafts, and grips for you to buy. The amount of stuff is completely overwhelming. Yet this is a good thing, as it gives you tons of flexibility in customizing your Gameface golfer. With a little time and effort, I've created a golfer who is the spitting image of myself, down to the baggy Levi's, black polo, and black and white sneakers. Cool!

With all the modes, and the rock solid Gameface and pro-shop features, the game offers just enough to keep you coming back for more. More abuse from the suspicious play control and abominable putting, and more fun and enjoyment in upgrading your golfer's skills and gear.

Conclusion
This game is poised on the verge of greatness. It has everything any golf fan, casual or hardcore, would ever want in a game. Everything and more in fact. The one thing holding it back is play control in dire need of an overhaul. If EA tweaks this for next year's version, they will have created the greatest golf game of all time, no doubt about it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/11/03