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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 is the culmination of everything Tiger Woods 2003 did right with the addition of upgrades in most every facet of the game.
November 28, 2003 | 10:00 PM PSTby: Donny Simpson
While this year’s iteration doesn’t stray much from its predecessor, Tiger Woods 2004 builds upon the proven formula and adds a great deal of depth and polish to an already fabulous golf simulation. Having never spent a great deal of time with any of the previous Tiger Woods games until now, I felt encompassed by the sheer amount of depth in Tiger Woods 2004. It’s rare to come across a game that offers such variety and detail. While it can be tough to touch base with the most fundamental game mode buried in all of this, it’s hard not to feel satisfied with the effort.
The start of the game almost begs for some customization and personalization as its essential to create a game biography and your own golfer. Faced with these challenges, it becomes a must to traverse the menu screen of Tiger Woods, as a great deal of time will be spent flipping between screens and modes. The visual presentation of the menu layout is the standard EA Sports package: a clean mostly white backdrop, background animations, and the typical character animation showcase to the side of the menu options. It’s become a standard practice this generation for EA to reuse the same basic menu design, but it suffices for a menu to say the least – really, it’s far better than most any other menu I’ve seen in today’s games.
What follows after the menu is a fairly speedy load screen and a nice panning view of some of the most visually pleasing graphically rendered golf courses ever. In this year’s Tiger Woods, the courses have a more complete and connected feeling. Each hole is part of a course and isn’t just sitting off to itself. The side scenery is abundant and is worth complimenting for the lone fact that so much of it is rendered simultaneously. The amount of gap that exists around a given hole is pretty large, and thankfully there are few glaring inconsistencies to the world around us as we golf.
The finer graphical points in Tiger Woods 2004 are the visual details from a broad perspective and the character animations. As noted above, the graphical detail is worth merit. The accuracy and detail of the courses is stunning. The number of trees, the blades of grass in the rough, the sand pits and bunkers, and the rising and descending slopes on each hole are an accurate representation that do the game of golf justice in every sense.
Following along with this sense of accuracy and detail are the golfers themselves. The character models, while not the best to date, are very good. They’re detailed. Their mannerisms are life-like. Their reactions to their shots are dead on with emotion. If the ball lands in a sand pit or takes a plunge into a pond, the golfer is going to react fashionably. Likewise, one of the best experiences in the game is watching your golfer celebrate after an exciting play. When he accomplishes something exciting, he responds with excitement, poise, and pose. It fits the mood of the setting. It’s a gratifying feeling to pull off a skillful shot because your golfer knows it and shows it. The game has a lot of style in this sense.
Getting up close and personal with the landscape and side-scenery is not as pleasurable as one might expect. While the main part of each hole on the course is clean and sharp with nice textures, straying off the fairway can be a different experience that is both punishing to your stroke count as well as your eyes. The trees are a nice feature when off in the distance, but don’t bother knocking your ball over by one if you’re the adventurous type looking to gain the complete and total experience of the game. You’ll be wishing you hadn’t. The textures used for the trees are not so luscious and green. The same experience applies on courses with mountainous terrain. There is one course that is sure to give most golfers a close up view of some of the most steep and stretched textures in the entire game. The rocky terrain is not very detailed at all.
The texture work is easily forgivable and rather understandable given the size of some of the holes. At times, there are a lot of objects to render and a lot to appreciate in terms of detail. What are not so forgivable are the spectators who stand by along the outskirts of the course. They’re not very animated. In fact, they’re totally inanimate! The cheers just happen to come from their direction. It’s like being watched by a row of cardboard cutouts. I’ve felt more life and enthusiasm while being watched by my fish. This is not to say that no spectators at all would have been better, but the flat-textured motionless spectators honestly detract from the true-to-life experience of the game. This is a flaw that the developers would be wise to fix in the future.
The more crucial part of Tiger Woods 2004 is the gameplay. Where last year’s iteration made such strides, this year’s immediately follows up with most of the same formula. Fans of the Tiger Wood series should relish the fact that the controls have not changed, and much of what made the previous installment great has been built upon.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Tiger Woods PGA Tour is the use of the analog stick for swing control. This is something I’ve never been very comfortable with. While I’m still undecided on what I prefer, this form of swing control is starting to grow on me the more I play. But for what it’s worth (pro or con), the use of the analog stick makes accuracy more of a skill that is dependent on the gamer rather than purely strategy and thought. While gamers get to choose the direction they are generally swinging in, a mistake with the analog stick can send the ball hooking into the rough or forest. It can go out of bounds in a hurry. This is a good thing and a bad thing. I love games that focus on gaming skills, however, PGA Tour 2004 can become increasingly less accessible to some gamers because getting good shots is a real challenge in itself. This is before stroke counting ever comes into play, let alone competing in tournaments at the PGA Tour level.
What remains in Tiger Woods 2004 is one of the deepest games I have ever played. The depth of modes and events will either drown gamers or hook them permanently. Personally, I felt a little lost at sea when I started to dig around the options. Even the Game Face (create-a-golfer) mode was far steeper than I expected. The amount of personal detail that can be given to your golfer is impressive. From the size of the face to the shape of the face, most any part of your created golfer can be tweaked. After fooling around with the proportions of my golfer, I bought him some clothing, geared him up, and hurried to get in a few shots on the course.
The start of the game almost begs for some customization and personalization as its essential to create a game biography and your own golfer. Faced with these challenges, it becomes a must to traverse the menu screen of Tiger Woods, as a great deal of time will be spent flipping between screens and modes. The visual presentation of the menu layout is the standard EA Sports package: a clean mostly white backdrop, background animations, and the typical character animation showcase to the side of the menu options. It’s become a standard practice this generation for EA to reuse the same basic menu design, but it suffices for a menu to say the least – really, it’s far better than most any other menu I’ve seen in today’s games.
What follows after the menu is a fairly speedy load screen and a nice panning view of some of the most visually pleasing graphically rendered golf courses ever. In this year’s Tiger Woods, the courses have a more complete and connected feeling. Each hole is part of a course and isn’t just sitting off to itself. The side scenery is abundant and is worth complimenting for the lone fact that so much of it is rendered simultaneously. The amount of gap that exists around a given hole is pretty large, and thankfully there are few glaring inconsistencies to the world around us as we golf.
The finer graphical points in Tiger Woods 2004 are the visual details from a broad perspective and the character animations. As noted above, the graphical detail is worth merit. The accuracy and detail of the courses is stunning. The number of trees, the blades of grass in the rough, the sand pits and bunkers, and the rising and descending slopes on each hole are an accurate representation that do the game of golf justice in every sense.
Following along with this sense of accuracy and detail are the golfers themselves. The character models, while not the best to date, are very good. They’re detailed. Their mannerisms are life-like. Their reactions to their shots are dead on with emotion. If the ball lands in a sand pit or takes a plunge into a pond, the golfer is going to react fashionably. Likewise, one of the best experiences in the game is watching your golfer celebrate after an exciting play. When he accomplishes something exciting, he responds with excitement, poise, and pose. It fits the mood of the setting. It’s a gratifying feeling to pull off a skillful shot because your golfer knows it and shows it. The game has a lot of style in this sense.
Getting up close and personal with the landscape and side-scenery is not as pleasurable as one might expect. While the main part of each hole on the course is clean and sharp with nice textures, straying off the fairway can be a different experience that is both punishing to your stroke count as well as your eyes. The trees are a nice feature when off in the distance, but don’t bother knocking your ball over by one if you’re the adventurous type looking to gain the complete and total experience of the game. You’ll be wishing you hadn’t. The textures used for the trees are not so luscious and green. The same experience applies on courses with mountainous terrain. There is one course that is sure to give most golfers a close up view of some of the most steep and stretched textures in the entire game. The rocky terrain is not very detailed at all.
The texture work is easily forgivable and rather understandable given the size of some of the holes. At times, there are a lot of objects to render and a lot to appreciate in terms of detail. What are not so forgivable are the spectators who stand by along the outskirts of the course. They’re not very animated. In fact, they’re totally inanimate! The cheers just happen to come from their direction. It’s like being watched by a row of cardboard cutouts. I’ve felt more life and enthusiasm while being watched by my fish. This is not to say that no spectators at all would have been better, but the flat-textured motionless spectators honestly detract from the true-to-life experience of the game. This is a flaw that the developers would be wise to fix in the future.
The more crucial part of Tiger Woods 2004 is the gameplay. Where last year’s iteration made such strides, this year’s immediately follows up with most of the same formula. Fans of the Tiger Wood series should relish the fact that the controls have not changed, and much of what made the previous installment great has been built upon.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Tiger Woods PGA Tour is the use of the analog stick for swing control. This is something I’ve never been very comfortable with. While I’m still undecided on what I prefer, this form of swing control is starting to grow on me the more I play. But for what it’s worth (pro or con), the use of the analog stick makes accuracy more of a skill that is dependent on the gamer rather than purely strategy and thought. While gamers get to choose the direction they are generally swinging in, a mistake with the analog stick can send the ball hooking into the rough or forest. It can go out of bounds in a hurry. This is a good thing and a bad thing. I love games that focus on gaming skills, however, PGA Tour 2004 can become increasingly less accessible to some gamers because getting good shots is a real challenge in itself. This is before stroke counting ever comes into play, let alone competing in tournaments at the PGA Tour level.
What remains in Tiger Woods 2004 is one of the deepest games I have ever played. The depth of modes and events will either drown gamers or hook them permanently. Personally, I felt a little lost at sea when I started to dig around the options. Even the Game Face (create-a-golfer) mode was far steeper than I expected. The amount of personal detail that can be given to your golfer is impressive. From the size of the face to the shape of the face, most any part of your created golfer can be tweaked. After fooling around with the proportions of my golfer, I bought him some clothing, geared him up, and hurried to get in a few shots on the course.
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November 20, 2009
