And much like Codemaster's excellent Colin McRae sequel, this game takes a fundamentally solid and entertaining game and makes it even better. The new courses are nice and the graphics look slightly nicer (more tufts of grass here and there and a better draw distance), but the main change is the addition of the ability to play a proper, low running chip shot with any club you desire. There's also an overlaid contour grid to help you judge slopes, and the "Caddy Tip" putting advice is much more accurate than last year's.

   

The first thing you have to do in order to compete in most of the game modes is make your own "Game Face" character model. You can either try and 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 that become available as you beat them (there are about 30 in all).

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). 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 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.

   

TW 2004 stays at the top of the console leaderboard as far as we're concerned - despite being a bit easy for veterans it means that the game is a perfect chill-out game, whilst still getting as hectic and competitive as you like if you fiddle with the options or add human opponents (although the new 'PGA Tour' mode makes it impossible to play tournaments with more than one player). EA could maybe have 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 a challenge (even the "scenarios" seem easier this year). The graphics are colourful and crisp, and the vast number of animations excellent - only the overall similarity to 2003's game stops it from getting the full 10 that it would surely deserve if it had been released at a budget data disc price point.