Tiger Woods PGA TOUR BY EA SPORTS

2.0 stars

"Poor imitation of Tiger. Disappointing."

September 14, 2011  |   By JARblue

Version: Tiger Woods PGA TOUR BY EA SPORTS 1.7.22

Pros

The game looks and plays like Tiger. The graphics are good and the controls are in line with previous versions of Tiger.

Cons

This game is all about EA making $$$. Every aspect of the game has been tweaked to entice you to purchase spending cash though you can still earn it by actually playing the game. I wonder if some of the gameplay issues below stem from their greed..

Summary

I have also noticed a number of gameplay issues, where it appears EA just didn't spend the time to get it right:

Apparently, no one in this game is capable of hitting a shot more than 150 yds out of the second cut - PW, 5i, 2i, and 3W all go same distance with 100% power & 100% boost. This has not changed even as all my stats approach full.

The swing trace for your finger goes haywire every so often. I will have a 100% power, no boost drive off the tee with the trace almost perfectly straight and overlapping, yet my shot ends up 20 yds off the fairway to one side or the other. I wouldn't expect this to continue to happen now that all of my stats are nearly full, but it does about once a round and sometimes more. If my finger was in fact not moving straight, I would hope the trace would identify that for me.

The announcer seems to say something about getting aggressive on the next shot EVERY shot. The audio clips are too few and too repetitive. It's annoying, especially given that Tiger has traditionally had great audio clips.

Also, the AI can be ridiculous in some situations, which I will just chalk up to the $$$ motive. I've noticed especially on Expert difficulty, the AI will mirror your score constantly. If I miss my long putt, they miss their short putt; if they are 50 ft from the pin and I put my approach shot within 5 ft, the computer sinks their putt every single time on Expert mode. In addition to this, EA has apparently done away with overtime. If you draw, you lose and have to pay money to attempt the challenge again. This makes some of the most basic Tiger challenges very frustrating. I literally had to eagle 2 Par 4s in a 3-hole stroke play challenge to win after some girl went birdie-eagle-birdie cause I was playing well. This is the same girl that earlier had matched my bogey when I put consecutive shots into fairway bunkers yet she drove the fairway and made GIR. I spent nearly $10K trying to beat this $400 entry challenge. I had experienced a lot of minor irritations to this point, but to have this kind of game experience with nearly full stats, it was NOT the Tiger Woods golf I'm used to.

I would like to see a manual save and load feature with an on/off auto-save option like there is in nearly every Tiger Woods game ever made. I would also like to know the details of the Tiger challenge prior to paying the entry fee. It does not tell you the # of holes or conditions for winning until after you pay.

I won't be holding my breath for EA to give up easily made $$$ for my whims, but luckily the NBA Jam iPhone version they made is absolutely terrific and a great alternative to this poor excuse for a Tiger Woods golf video game.

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