"Tiger Woods is the Best of a Short List of DS Games"

Introduction
Tiger Woods PGA Tour (TWPT) for the Nintendo DS is undoubtedly the best game available for the new DS of the short list currently on the market. Having said that, it is not without it's faults and likely suffers from the “rush-to-release” syndrome of other current offerings.

On balance, the game provides a very good, hand-held golfing simulation with good graphics, adequate sound, and a challenging (sometimes frustrating) game control system. The game premise is similar to other Tiger Woods products. You either use an existing golfer or build one from scratch, win money through tournaments (one-on-one or multi-day events), and use the money to improve the golfer attributes. There is no equipment updating as in other Tiger Woods games. As you advance you can unlock additional opponents (including legendary pros like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus) and additional courses which can then be played in quick mode.

The DS provides for multi-player action and TWPT allows up to 4 players to participate on-line. This is a terrific feature of the DS but does require three other friends who have DS equipment in the same room. I have not used the multi-player feature and this review will be limited to the single player experience.

Game Play:
TWPT for the DS is a highly addictive game, like its bigger console and computer brothers but I think this is in spite of the inherent inconsistencies in the control system for wood and iron shots and the lack of a decent putting approach.

The controls for hitting wood and iron shots uses the lower touch screen of the DS. You have a curved meter representing the back swing, ball and follow-through areas of a golf swing. In addition, there is a power-up bar to the right of the hit meter for adding “boost” to your shot. Essentially you rub over the “boost” bar and then drag the stylus over the back swing, into the ball and up the follow-through meter. However, apparently if you strike the ball at slightly different spots or don't follow through completely you can get widely varying results. I've tried to hit the ball consistently (using quicker and slower swing motions) with over 24 hours of playing time and the results still vary from 20 to 30% in terms of distance. It is no trick to hit the ball straight but the lack of consistency in distance can mean disaster when you are playing at the Legend level on difficult courses. At first I thought this inconsistency would lessen as my attributes improved but I'm now at 100% in all attribute categories and haven't noticed any real difference in this aspect of the game. Maybe I'm a klutz with the stylus?

It's unfortunate since the emphasis in this game should be on the strategy for playing a given hole: considering whether it's a downhill or uphill shot to the green, the wind direction and speed, location of bunkers and out of bounds areas, etc. Not on how good you can follow a touch-pad curve with a stylus. You can plan everything out to perfection in this game but if you can't execute a reasonably consistent swing, you can be out of luck and frustrated.

Putting uses a very simple approach. A grid of 2 foot squares is placed over the hole and somewhat describes the contours of the 6 by 6 foot area around the pin. If you are close enough, the caddy provides advice as to where to aim in terms of feet and inches short or long, and left or right. It's pretty accurate and fairly easy to approximate where to aim. You can become a deadly putter provided you are close enough to the hole and the caddy advice does not involve distances in excess of 6 feet where estimation becomes more difficult. Conversely, when there's no caddy advice at all you are at a terrific disadvantage. You have no idea how hard you'll be hitting the ball and how much break there will be before you hit the 6 by 6 foot area around the hole. You'd be in better shape off the green where you can chip up close more easily and consistently. That's a real problem with the game when it effectively penalizes you for being on the green. Further, when you get to the “Legend” level the game sometimes will withhold caddy advice even when you are fairly close to the pin! It appears to do this as an equalizing approach to help CPU players. There is nothing more frustrating than to get a ball close to the hole and have to take a shot with no advice and wind up putting it off the green!

So in summary, this is a great game that is a lot of fun to play and advance through but it is somewhat flawed by the two control systems that can create very frustrating situations.

Graphics/Sound:
The graphics in TWPT for the DS are decent within the constraints of a hand-held system. This particular game is tailor made for the dual screen approach with a 2D overhead view of the hole on the bottom screen and the 3D view of the golfer's swing and the ball trajectory on the upper hole. Obviously the graphical components (trees, water, rocks, etc.) are flat and static but the overall effect is workable. Players are modeled pretty well (again for a smaller hand-held screen). You can certainly recognize key players like Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

The sound is adequate for this type of game. You can hear the bird's chirp and the waves breaking at Pebble Beach. The ball hit sounds, particularly the driver are pretty good. I wish my drives sounded as solid. The music during the menus is fairly generic but unobtrusive.

Playing Time/Replay Value:
TWPT takes a fair amount of time to complete. I'm probably about 90% through the game and have played over 24 hours. The difficulty is staggered as the CPU players are much worse on the Rookie level, better on the Pro level and really good on the Legend level. This lets you work through the early levels without too much replaying of tournaments and earn cash and build your attributes on a steady basis.

The replay value of the game is somewhat limited. Once you have built all of your attributes to 100%, there seems to be no point to garnering additional money as there's nothing to buy! I reached the 100% attribute point at the end of the Pro level games so the only incentive I had to continue at the Legend level was to unlock some additional golfers. I seriously doubt I would replay the entire process again. Of course multi-player capability opens the door to a whole additional level of play that could provide nearly endless replay capability for those fortunate enough to have other DS players nearby.

Problems/Bugs:
As I indicated earlier, I think this game suffers from the early release syndrome and, at least my version of the game, has some problems.

The worst problem involves the “Save and Quit” feature. On several occasions I have had erratic results in attempting to Save games. This generally occurs during a multi-day Tournament. You Save and Quit the game say on the 17 th hole of a Pebble Beach tournament but when you re-load you are on the 18 th hole of Sawgrass in a different tournament game. I missed two tournaments in this fashion and have no idea how I finished but I did wind up with some money.

Another interesting problem with the multi-day tournaments occurs pretty regularly. It's hard to re-test these things since once you play a tourney you're locked out of replaying it. This was undoubtedly so that golfers could not replay the same easier tourney to build cash. What happens is you complete the tournament on the 18 th hole of the final day and expect to go to the results screen but NO you go back to the 1st hole and have to play it one more time. After you play that hole you get the results screen. It's a little weird.

In the Legends level, I've had CPU players miss a putt but the game reacts as if they made the putt! Really maddening if you lose the hole. This may be another example of unrealistic help at the Legend level for the CPU golfers. Another example of this occurred at a Skins game at St. Andrews. The CPU golfer (Rose I think) hit into a green-side bunker with the ball flat up against the front wall. The St. Andrews pot bunkers are massive and very hard to get out of even if you're not plastered up against the front wall! Well needless to say he holed-out from that position! Possible maybe but wow!

Another anomaly in the game I've noticed is the shortened distance achieved when backspin is applied. I'm no scientist but I don't think a ball's distance traveled is affected by backspin in flight. Certainly it is intended to stop and even pull back the ball on striking the green but not shorten the distance traveled. Again, I'm not an expert on real golf ball behavior but I've never noticed this in any other computer golf game or in my own limited, real golf experience.

Many of these problems (assuming they're not unique to my game chip) seem to suggest inadequate play testing. Hopefully the future releases will have the time to fully test and try out alternative swing and putting techniques.

Final Recommendation:
As I said up front, for right now, this is hands down the best game available for the DS. I would not have played through 24 hours if it was not enjoyable and this is without utilizing the multi-player feature which could certainly add to the fun regardless of the control issues and problems. I highly recommend it for anyone and everyone with a DS.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05