Don't play golf in a thunderstorm. ZZzzzzz.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Brilliant Graphics. Good commentary. The fans really liked that... all seven of them.

Cons: 3 hours sleep a night. Stupid (my Epinion) made up courses. Can't play at work.

The Bottom Line: 
Awesome game. Different playing modes will keep you hooked for ages.

Author's Review
standing at the eighteenth tee at st andrews, my heart pounding, racing quicker and
quicker with every passing second i realised that this was it, this was my shot at the big
time. par this hole and i would finish the tournament an incredible 22 shots in the lead,
tiger woods wallowing in a lowly second place only able to applaud my exceptional
golfing talents. methodically, i drew my club back, eye on the ball, knees slightly bent
and then thwack, i sent the ball rocketing down the fairway as fast as one of tiger's
autograph hunters who has accidentally got one of his sleeves caught in tiger's ferrari
door. it looks a big one, it's going to reach the gr... no way, it can't reach can it?

oh.. my... god... a 362 yard drive, that is incredible.

tiger is crouched next to me, crying into his hands, as he feels his dominance over the
sport slipping away from him. faintly, as i collect my 'long drive challenge' trophy ball
(for hitting a drive over 350 yards) and 'my 1st par 4 green in one' (for, you guessed it,
reaching a par 4 green in one), i can hear tiger muttering under his breath:

'i'll get my own back when we play on one of those made up courses. especially if
there's a 26 mph wind blowing. you won't stand a chance then. you may have won the
battle, pops, but you haven't won the war. ha ha ha'.

the first thing that grabbed me about this game when i started playing it, wasn't just that ea had somehow managed to shrink tiger woods down to 20 inches tall and stuffed him in my tv, but i also wondered how it could be so realistic when it's quite obviously very different to playing the real thing. from this, i moved onto wondering whether i coudl really compare it to my own experience of crazy golf on blackpool prom but, everyone's an expert,
right?

This game is incredible. Golf games through the history of time have had me hooked, though, so perhaps I'm showing just a little bias. I remember sitting up for hours and hours on end playing PGA on the Mega Drive. 72 holes, win by 40 shots, earn a fortune, and for some bizarre reason, play it again. Except the reason isn't bizarre. For PGA, like it's modern day counterpart can claim to be one of very few games with such a high level of playability to it. Tiger Woods also has the added advantage of modern technology. It combines 12 (yes 12, I checked on the back of the box) courses of which 9 are true PGA courses. It has somewhere short of 2 and a half thousand real PGA tour players, and 12 (again, I checked on the box) quirky caricature characters.

The game itself boasts 10 game modes, from Tiger Challenge (a career type affair) to Online Events. It has the usual suspects like Skins, Tournaments, Match Play, Stroke Play, but it also has the Skillzone section where you can play... 'unusual' golf games like Target golf and Target2Target golf.

There's also the scenarios, where you work through a series of different tasks earning a Bronze, Silver or Gold medals and some much needed cash into the bargain. First of all, however, you have to take a quick test to see if you're up to the grade (think of it as a sort of golfing proficiency test. A couple of loops around the cones, make sure you're wearing your helmet and away you go.). Until you've completed this test, you can only play this test.

Within Challenge mode (probably the main bit of the game, although there really are so many styles of play that your options are by no means exhausted once you've completed the challenge) you have to beat a series of competitors in either Match Play, Scenario, Skins and Tournament modes against all levels of players. Each time you beat a player, you can then choose to be that player t
he next time you play Challenge Mode. Also, with every group of players you beat you get the next hole in Tiger's dream 18.

During each hole, you earn money by fulfilling certain criteria, such as 'pin seeker' bonus for hitting the flag, GIR bonus for reaching the green in the suggested number of shots, and many more including, I think, a Hit the Ball bonus for hitting the ball. You use this cash to attain new attributes and new equipment. If you manage to fulfil extra special criteria, such as a 350 yard drive you get a tournament ball and a wad of foldy notes. Beating some of your rivals will lead to you being awarded a tour card without which you are unable to play in some of the 'open' tournaments in Tournament mode.

This game is so involved that I could, and I think already have, harp on and on about it, but then you'd get bored with me, like my first wife (Boo hoo) so I'll cut it down a little. You can play 1-4 players, you can play online, you can play as Tiger or against Tiger, you can eve play Speed Golf where you actually have to run after your ball to play the next shot!!!

All in all, this game is brilliant. Trying to get 100% completed on this has taken me weeks and weeks, and if Tiger 2004 hadn't come out, I would probably take a short break and go back to playing this again. The graphics are sexily smooth, the commentary is frightfully funny, the gameplay is devilishly delightful and the game on the whole is bloody brilliant. So, buy it or buy 2004, the choice is yours, but I can only imagine this is a lot cheaper than 2004 and still a game well worth owning.

The only grip I have about this game, in fact, are the ridiculous made up courses. They are unbelievably difficult. They still look as near perfect as the actual ones, but playing them is like Vinnie Jones (A bit hard). Other than that, I would recommend it to anyone. Even you lot. I caan't give it a five out
of five, because for me these courses were just too silly, and they take up quite a big part of the game, if you're trying to complete all the tournaments.

n.b. be warned, if you own a St Bernard, then there's a possibility, albeit only quite a small possibility but a possibility nonetheless, that the disc has been created to smell and taste especially good to them (probably a deviously crafty ploy by EA in order to sell more than one copy to each gamer) but this game is so good that when our St B ate my copy, I had to go out and buy another copy the same day because I hadn't finished playing it yet.

oh, and about the two and a half thousand PGA tour players. I was actually exxagerating about that, you know, to try and accentuate the point that there are a considerable amount of them (apparently, in fact, 'the most PGA tour pros to date', so there.)