Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
by Electronic Arts
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List Price: Buy Used: from $1.88 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
Customer Review: Finally, the version we've been waiting for
Summary: 5 Stars
It looks like, finally, the game makers are listening.
In TW 2006, the gameplay we have all grown to like has been matched with greater variety in terms of side-features. For example, equipment is now something more than just looks. Different clubs perform differently, and cost money to get. Balls, too.
The system for advancing your golfer skill-wise has also been improved. Now, instead of everything relying on money (which used to mean that if you ran out of money, you were stuck in limbo until random chance during a scenario saved you), experience points, which can be earned simply by participating in a scenario or tournament, determine your climb to perfection.
The courses selected for use this time around are also among the best for this series. They range from historic to simply tough nail-biters, and should help keep everything turning into a slug-fest, as was common in the older versions.
Graphics and voices are still buggy, unfortunately. This does not detract too much from the play value, but is something that should be addressed quickly, now that vast improvements have been made to the game overall.
Customer Review: Much more challenging than the '04 version
Summary: 4 Stars
Having played the '04 version of this game for a couple years, I was ready for new challenges. In some ways this version is more realistic in that rather than starting in tournaments which can be played over and over until a decent score is attained, this year we start as a real rookie and play one game a month with friends at one course in the hopes of getting the average down low enough to qualify for a tournament. The first year I didn't qualify and will have to start over with a new player. There is more time wasted as the charecters always display emotion (usualy temper) after a shot. The player builder is changed. I was able to get a charecter to look something like me in the old game but I can't quite do it in this one, As with real golf, I will keep trying until I get into the tournament and hopefully qualify to play in the PGA. I suspect that I will not do well enough on the first attempt and will have to try again "next year."Customer Review: TW06 is "pure down the fairway "
Summary: 5 Stars
TW06 carries on with it's annual updating of the best golf simulation game ever designed. Off-line play is great but, the on-line play is where the real fun and challenges begin. The game comes with 12 stock courses that are realistic and have stunning graphics. Then the custom course designers from around the world get going on courses to download for free all year long. These courses are at time superior the the stock courses. Hundreds of courses may be downloaded to keep TW06 fresh and interesting.Customer Review: An expansion to an already great game.
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up on this great golf series starting with the 2005 version. The 2006 title has everything that made 2005 great plus a few extras. If you have never played any of the previous versions then this is a no-brainer purchase. The best golf game there is.
If you have played the predecessors then you are probably wondering if this title offers anything above and beyond what you have already seen. I will say that this game seems more like a slight expansion with a patch to enhance performance than it does a full blown release. Here are the reasons:
1) The gameplay is the same. This is a good thing. The gameplay in 2005 was so good I imagine that any change would be a step backward. This part of the game supports the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" rule.
2) The commentary is the exact same. Word for word. If you played the 2005 version long enough to hear all the comments over and over again then you have already heard everything that has to be said in this game. I mean it was so dead on I wondered if the game was accidentally using the commentary files from my TW2005 installation.
3) The graphics have been improved and so has the performance. You have several old favorites from TW2005 and they look much sharper and run without chopping.
4) The box boasted an improved game face. The game face was still nice but I did not see anything new. In fact some of the characters I created to look like myself and people I know with the 2005 game face were not as easy to reproduce with the new version.
5) Many of the "new" game types are only new on the surface. For example, you now go back in time to take on legends of the past but when you strip it of its new interface you realize that it is the exact same thing as the scenarios mixed with a little legends from TW2005.
They did improve on some things. Of course you do have much more ofa a clothing variety, a few new courses, and equipment. Things like that could easily be handled in a relatively simple expansion or mod.
One vast improvement is the way you progress as a golfer throughout the game. You now earn experience points that are seperate from money earnings. Experience points, not money, is used to buy attribute points. This makes for a much more difficult, but not too much so, progress up through the ranks of the PGA tour.
Another improvement is the addition of group play. You can team up with a partner to play 4 ball and other group gaming modes. This may have been availble online in the previous versions, I'm not sure, but it is now available in single player games. It can be frustrating though when you are playing alternate hits and your CPU partner misses nearly every 6 foot putt.
I gave this game 5 stars because it is extremely fun. It has a high replay value due to the things that can be unlocked and due to the way you have to progress through the game to become top dog. If you are new to the series you can't miss this game. If you are looking for vast improvements over the previous version you might want to wait until the price comes down. You should still get it because it does add to the series but maybe not enough to justify the full price of a new game.
Customer Review: Much different, but much the same.
Summary: 4 Stars
I love the Tiger Woods series of golf games, and have been playing them for quite awhile. The best platform for these (and all games in my opinion) is the PC. And of all golf games, Tiger Woods is undeniably the best series. For this game specifically, it plays the same way as 2005 did, but there is just enough new content to make it feel like a diffent game.
First and foremost, it runs WAY smoother. I have a PC that can run any game out there, and 2005 had some stuttering problems. They seemed to have all the bugs worked out on this one. I have every graphic option set on the highest setting and it runs smooth as silk. My setup:
256 MB BFG Nvidia 6800GT OC video card
1 GB DDR RAM
Asus K8V SE Deluxe motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ processor
A lot of that power isn't necessary to run this game, except for the video card. Graphically, this game is pretty gorgeous. I wouldn't say it's as good looking as Half Life 2 or Battlefield 2, but it's pretty close. The only complaint I really have is the same one I had with 05: there doesn't seem to be any anti-aliasing process, so the flagsticks look jagged if they're bending in the wind, and sometimes the tree trunks look a little goofy. Other than that, the courses have an updated look and things just look a little more polished in general.
As far as the layout of the game, the menus have all been updated to look a little sleeker, and the different play modes of the game seem a little more personal. Everything looks a little less generic in general.
Gameplay wise, don't expect a whole lot of difference. If fact, don't expect any difference. This isn't a bad thing at all. The True Swing controls were fine the way they were. In 06 however, you can also use a controller if you want to so that it plays more like the console releases. I don't plan on doing this because I'm used to using the mouse, but it's there if I decide to try to hook up the controller and use the analog sticks.
Where this game really feels different is the way you progress through it. If you start as a new character, which I think is more fun, you don't just jump on the PGA tour this time. You have to earn your way to even being able to play on the tour. I think it's really cool, because it starts you from square one playing with your computer generated golf buddies on whatever course you choose to be your home course. They call this the hack tour and there are many different side games you play to earn money. It's also a chance to build up skills. In this game you don't buy attributes, you use experience points to get them. Your money is used to take lessons and buy equipment. I think that is a more realistic approach and it was a good move on the part of EA. Also, at first I was a little disappointed that everything seemed the same in general compared to last years game, even as far as the same cinematic scenes on startup and the same character animations. However, if you play long enough you'll start noticing more and more new things.
Now for the bad. First of all, it's not necessarily free online play. You get presented with a choice when you first try to play online. Either pay a $2.00 subscription fee, or let ESPN pay the fee for you, thus giving them permission to send you e mail about other products. I immediately had visions of an inbox full of spam, so I paid the $2.00. It looked like this would be a one time only fee, so what the heck, right? Hopefully they'll use my money to fix the lag on their Battlefield 2 servers. The other lame thing was that I wasn't given the option to import my old character from 05, which I had maxed out. I would have loved to keep him and play through the whole game, but maybe then it wouldn't have let me start from the beginning anyway.
I think I would've called this game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 version 1.5 rather than 06. That's why I gave it 4 stars. However, 05 was a great game, so any improvement on it is going to also be a great game. I have already spent a lot of time in front of the computer playing it. EA did a lot of little things to fix some of the annoying stuff from last year's game, so kudos to the evil empire on this one. As easy as it is to hate EA, they do make great games, and this is one of them.