If you read Gamecell’s review of last year’s Tiger Woods 2004 (here) you’ll know how much we liked it. This 2005 edition uses the same game engine and has a bit of visual enhancement, but has added some superb new courses, some new game modes, an impressive ‘create a player’ editor, and tweaked the control system’s weak points…
And if you did read last year’s review you’ll know that it started off exactly the same way – but hey, if it’s good enough for the game it’s good enough for a review. EA Sports have taken a fundamentally solid and entertaining game and arguably made it better here and there. The new courses are nice (and there’s nothing as silly as last year’s Amazon jungle course), the graphics look slightly nicer (more tufts of grass here and there and a better draw distance with more detail surrounding the holes). As with last years addition of a proper, low running chip shot, this year we get the ability to move the ball forward or backward in the stance (making shots lower or higher), and there’s also a new “Tiger Vision” aid that you can use a certain number of times per round that shows you exactly where to hit a putt (although this isn’t 100% accurate, just like the real Tiger). Combine these with the same old intuitive control system, and the game is ridiculously easy – especially for veterans of the series. Example; as soon as you start with your own profile player you can hit drives approaching 300 yards and my first competitive round was 54…
As before the first thing you have to do in order to compete in most of the game modes is make your own “Game Face” profile and character model. You can try to make a player that looks like yourself, or what you’d like to look like, or even a comedy-looking weirdo with seriously bad taste in clothes and hairstyle. Some game types allow you to play as Tiger, or various other PGA pros (glamour boys John Daly and Colin Montgomerie amongst others) or the many in-game characters (a real bunch of weirdoes and stereotypes) that become available as you beat them (there are about 30 in all), whilst still adding money to your profile (you win $$$ for everything in the TW games, even practice rounds). This 2005 edition continues with a similar unlock system; win prize money for everything, get loads of sponsorship, upgrade your player, buy new equipment/clothes/tattoos/weird stuff for your player (like metal teeth or “lucky” wristbands).
Tiger Proofing is this year’s big gimmick – and I’m afraid as far as I’m concerned that’s all it is. It allows you to alter the dimensions of the fairway & green, the depth of the bunkers and rough, the standard of the upkeep (condition of the grass), the weather & wind speed, and change the colour of the grass (even to red or blue), on any existing hole on any unlocked course, but as clever as it is, it’s not a proper construction set and a lot of work seems to yield little change and I never really felt like I wanted to play my very own Frankenstein courses anyway – even though you can pick and mix holes from any of the courses that you “buy”...
As I mentioned, the excellent control system from 2003 remains; you swing by pulling back and pushing the left (or right) analog stick, and hook or slice is applied by altering the swing path (just like the real game) – this is still pretty tough to do consistently though, and it still seems a bit weird that I can hit a driver 375 yards time and again but can’t draw or fade a ball precisely round trees when I want to – and it’s not a matter of practice it’s just difficult to do with any level of accuracy. Power and spin is added by tapping the white or black buttons – the ability to have some control over the ball after it has left the clubface might still grate with purists, but it makes every single shot more involving, and if you really don’t like it you can always turn it off on the options menu (along with the Caddy Tips, the contour grid and any other assistance you don’t want) which makes the game seriously hard and unforgiving. Playing on “Tour Mode” difficulty means you can win more money, but you don’t get any spin when hitting out of the rough or bunkers and no caddy tips for putts (which makes them all a bit of guesswork as the aiming line tells you next to nothing and there’s no contour grid), but the rest of the game is so easy that it barely makes a difference – you’ll soon be winning tournaments and matches easily no matter how “hard” you make the game. The problem with TW 2005 is still that it makes the long shots way too easy, whilst the control system has flaws that leave you with a lack of control around the greens on occasion.
Musically the game seems to have found the right sort of thing for me, a set of tunes by a BT (never heard of them), their music is reminiscent of Jan Hammer or Harold Faltermeyer and it suits the game's arcadier moments perfectly - certainly much better than the strange mixtures of previous years.
But despite the gripes, TW 2005 still stays at the top of the console leaderboard as far as we’re concerned – although it’s way too easy for veterans it’s still the perfect chill-out game, and thankfully they’ve put the ability to play tournaments with your mates (with their profile players) back in. EA should have upped the difficulty in order to make the game more involving (after a week of play my best round is now 45, and I’ve had four holes in one – which is ridiculous) or given us some AI opponents that adjusted their standard of play to your ability, which would have been cleverer than leaving it to you to alter the way you play the game in order to get more of a challenge (even the “scenarios” seem easier this year).
The graphics are without doubt colourful and crisp, and the vast number of animations are impressive - although the “Legend” golfers; Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player & Seve Ballesteros don’t have their real swing motion captured or have any sort of physique personalisation, which is disappointing (come to think of it, neither does Ryder Cup hero Colin Montgomerie, who still looks more like Sandy Lyle). The awful-looking, low-detail 16-bit standard spectators of last year have thankfully disappeared, but haven't been replaced with better ones, so all the raucous crowd cheering issues out of thin air again - surely it's about time we had a few realistic looking golf fans or grandstands around the 18th greens? Coupled with the inflexible controls and some poor cameras TW 2005 almost misses the cut and hasn't evolved as much as revolved, I think it’s “make your mind up time” for the series – the mini games are great but the TW PGA Tour package seems to get further and further away from being a proper PGA game every year; the inclusion of a pop star like Justin Timberlake and even weirder characters than even the deliberately outrageous Outlaw Golf don’t help its credibility one bit, and I can’t believe that the US PGA or indeed Tiger himself are entirely happy with it…
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