Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006

I've repeatedly blasted EA on this website. Why? Well, primarily because the multi million dollar game company seems to have completely forgotten how to make decent video games, if they ever even made any good ones in the first place. I equate EA to one big death star, trolling it's way around the world of video games, looking for some other franchise to utterly destroy.

Well, it looks like they've found a new target.

Tiger Woods has since died out from the public view. Be it the fact that he was something of a sports fad, or the fact that he's begun to utterly suck (though to be fair he's recently gotten much better), you don't really hear much about Tiger Woods anymore. Hell, that surprises me to some degree- I live right near a major Golf Course/Spa too, you would think at least in the town I'm at I would hear something.



But no. Golf is dead to the public, at least so far as mass popularity goes. Much like any super-popular player of sports, Tiger had his hour of power and fame, and he's now basically any other player, so far as the layman's eye goes. What surprises me, however, is his (somewhat) self-spawned game series, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, continues to roar on year after year with some sort of task to fulfill.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 is, you guessed it, golf. As usual, the game features a tournament mode, a mode taking you through different major golf courses, and, as the new fad for EA goes, a create-a-player mode. Obviously, EA Sports (the specific division created to kill kittens and franchises alike) has made no real effort in delineating Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 from any other run of the mill golf game, and just ends up making this game as boring as watching golf on TV.

But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself, as usual. There are some things that make Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 different than the handful of other golf games in the market right now. Primarily, of course, there is the standard Graphics/GUI/Sound upgrade, which pretty much gives Electronic Arts an excuse to make a new game. There's a new roster (don't ask me to give an opinion on it), some new game play styles (including a two stick mode that is actually somewhat fun), and increased realism. The standard for sports games, naturally.

What makes this year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 different than last year (and probably the only reason to buy this game) is the new hitting method, utilizing both control sticks. By manipulating the right stick, you can adjust your hit on the ball- and by swinging your left stick back and forward, you hit the ball. This manages to make this actually feel real- much different than the standard ?Power meter? we've seen before, and it makes the whole game feel a whole lot more interactive.



One thing that makes Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 more fun is the RPG-esque system that builds your character up. Other than the create-a-character mode, this new version allows you to spread out skill points to various parts of your golfer's attributes- from your basic power to your ?Game Breaker? abilities and other miscellaneous add-ons. While it seems a little weird to be doing this for people wearing ?conservative? clothing (it feels like it should be in a Dungeons and Dragons game), this allows for a very interesting character customization process that may make this game actually a little bit expansive.

The real kicker in this game is, as I mentioned before, the overall lack of anything new. While some game companies attempt to redefine sports genres (NBA Street, NFL Street, Burnout, etc), it seems as if PGA Tour has basically gotten the short end of the stick this year. While I suppose not much can be done with golf featuring people much older than your average athlete, one would still expect some sort of new innovation (mini games, different modes, that kind of thing). The game does try to be a little bit more on the ?extreme?- but that only applies to really poorly done graphically edited videos which could be poster videos for ?why graphical designers get paid too much to do very little?.

Obviously, I've been a bit harsh with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006. The reason is, of course, that this is yet another millstone on the market provided by EA Sports. The more I review of games by that company, I realize how EA continues to simply pump out the same things year after year with the least amount of work possible, and in this case, keeping things absolutely mediocre. A few upgrades should never be justification to shell out more money on the latest rendition of a game. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 is simply a game that will only be fun to people new to the series or hardcore golf fans- everyone else should try to play games that are innovative, such as Golf-inspired Pangya, which is at least fun (and has much younger and exciting characters).

2 star(s) out of 5

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