by: John Olin

November 22, 2005

Over the past few years EA Sports has taken control of the sports game industry in general especially in such cases as the NFL, NBA and of course Golf (PGA). No, not just golf in general either, EA has built their sports game success in golf off of quite possibly the greatest golfer of this time, and maybe of all time, Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 is EA’s first golfing 360 title, and truthfully it could be a lot better than it actually is.

If anything at all has changed from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 to 06, it would have to be the “re-vamped” control scheme. The biggest rendition you’ll notice is the use of the right-analog stick to help control your ball even further, which EA has dubbed the “shape stick”. The shape stick is a tool that players will be able to use to help further control their ball’s flight plan, landing direction and even speed. For example, moving the shape stick will move a cursor over your ball which is displayed enlarged on the bottom right of the screen. Place your cursor anywhere on the ball as you swing and when you hit the ball, wherever your cursor was placed will determine the general direction of that ball and whether or not there will be any sort of spin put on the ball as well. The manual spin control still exists (black button) where you can tap it and move the left-analog stick when your ball is in mid-air to help give your ball a spin, so this basically just rules out any real use for the shape stick to begin with.

”Gamebreaker”, a feature you might have seen in other recent sports games from EA, is another inclusion into the game that helps but doesn’t help either. All the gamebreaker is truly designed for is to help your character “enhance” or make their shot better by increasing the distance of a drive or helping to improve the accuracy of a long putt. Getting a gamebreaker never guarantees a perfect shot or give you the exact shot you want, but it just increases the chances of it happening, but almost by too much. Getting gamebreakers are relatively easy but just take a little bit of time. By achieving good shots throughout holes, your gamebreaker meter will charge up or go down with bad shots, and of course once it reaches max you have a gamebreaker.

Another change fans will notice is the putting system has been altered in several ways. A grid-like layout is now put over the entire green where little moving beads will travel across the gridline to show where there are slopes, hills and curves on that green. Also there to help recognize that is a color-coded green where certain colors mean certain things so it’s basically just reinforcement to the beads. A new putting indicator has been added as well where a small arrow dictates where your ball would go at max power on perfectly flat green, but of course since you will almost never find one like that, you will have to guess and assume where your ball will really go as you look to the grid for backup. Forget “Tiger Vision” because this year it has been removed from the game to make putting a little bit harder. However, in it’s place is a “ideal putt view” where the camera will pan and follow a thin white line will travel the best possible path from your ball, directly to the hole. While this isn’t necessarily easy to use, it does become practical and almost too helpful just like Tiger Vision was.

Returning this year again, is the famous character creation system. A truly unparalleled level of customization can be used for your created character that you cannot find in any other game. A new addition to this customization is a voice editor where you can now pick between 5 different types of voices and change the pitch from 0-100% for each voice as well. So, if you had a lot of time, patience and the smarts to do so, you could almost replicate yourself into this game.

Player models and such are just as attractive as ever and pretty much on the same level as last year’s designs. A few new courses have been added in and look great, just like every other course available. The actual backgrounds, such as horizons, forests, buildings or whatever seems to actually be pretty poorly done and for me were somewhat distracting because of how pixilated and bland they were. You may notice that now in the background is a little movement where, for example, certain trees and bushes will sway in the wind and every now and then you will see little animals wonder and scurry about which helps to keep the background from looking dry.

Again, like I said, the ability to change and edit the voice of your customized character is a wonderful feature that really adds for a very unique game experience for each player. The soundtrack isn’t anything too special to gawk at, but fans of Dave Matthews rejoice because his band headlines the game, and for the most part seems to fit in very well to the golfing environment. The game announcers from every past Tiger Woods game, Gary McCord and David Feherty return again this year with their unique and enjoyable comments and chatter that they make amongst each other while you golf, but of course, feel free to shut them up whenever you please by disabling the announcers.

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If you are looking for more with the Tiger Woods PGA Golf 06 on Xbox 360, then you will be out of luck. Those golf fans out there that haven't already, can buy the same game on Xbox, but with more features, less quality of visuals (although since when did you need to see each blade of grass to play golf?), and a cheaper price.

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