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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003

Score: 9.6 / 10

The first thing that most players are going to notice about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 is the stunning graphical design.  TW2003 is a beautiful game.  The courses are rendered to perfection, so accurate and detailed that it is easy to feel like playing the computer course a few times would lower your score on the real thing by a stroke or two.  The golfers might even be better looking than the lush environments as they feature the same high-polygon, motion-captured models found in EA’s more glamorous sports franchises.  Combined with the excellent ambient sound, TW2003 gives the player the most realistic golf experience yet seen.  But, as good as the graphics are, the graphical beauty is pushed way into the background by the impressive, immersive gameplay experience.  Simply put, TW2003 is the best golf game currently available and should be on any fan’s hard drive.

The amount of options given the player in TW2003 is simply mind-numbing.  Players can choose to start a quick-play game which will allow them to choose from any kind of golf game imaginable, including match play, stroke play, skins, team match play with alternating strokes, skills competition and others—fourteen different modes in all not including the challenges.  Those alone would give the game a serious amount of replay value, but TW2003 also includes an immensely customizable season mode and a unique career mode that is my favorite part of the game.  Add to those options a fair number of actual PGA players to choose from and a feature-packed create-a-golfer mode, not to mention full-fledged online and LAN play, and TW2003 becomes one of the best values currently on the shelf.

 

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Being a golf game, TW2003 doesn’t bring a tremendous amount of new gameplay.  Like all golf games, game play involves judging the shot, choosing the appropriate club and stance, and performing the perfect swing.  TW2003 does continue the use of the much appreciated Trueswing shot method, a mouse-base shooting style that replaces the traditional three-click method found in most golf games.  Trueswing 

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reminds me of nothing so much as the arcade golf games that use the Trak Ball to line up a shot and determine the power and direction of the swing.  The same principle is at work: players draw the mouse back to simulate the golfer’s backswing and then push it forward to simulate both the swing speed and direction.  Hitting the perfect shot with this method seems far more satisfying than doing so with the three-click method.  For those that do not agree, TW2003 includes the three-swing method also, though you can’t switch back and forth mid-career or mid-season.

Of all the modes and options available, the feature that really puts the game over the top for me is the career mode.  Players create a golfer that is just beginning his career and can play them through years and years of events attempting to make their golfer the best in the world.  The career mode uses a great interface: a simple calendar.  Every event is marked on the calendar which is shown month-by-month.  To play an event, players simply click on the date of the event on the calendar.  These events include standard stroke play, match play, skins, and skills competitions.  The great thing about the career mode is that the early events involve a small number of holes or shots, and the length and difficulty of the competitions increase as the career advances.  This gives the player the opportunity to practice skills between competitions almost immediately after a said skill has failed them instead of waiting until the end of a 72-hole match.  This makes the early months of the career mode like a training mode that doesn’t stink and is actually fun to play.

And that is TW2003 in a nutshell:  it is fun to play.  The options are part of this as is the PGA license, but perhaps the most important feature is the game’s speed.  TW2003 features the fastest course re-draw I’ve ever seen in a game, at least four times faster than the latest Links offering.  In fact, the re-draws are nearly instantaneous.  This makes it possible to play 18 holes of golf incredibly quickly.  The game becomes like salty snack food, nearly impossible to put down.  Not since Heroes of Might and Magic 3 have I felt the same pull to play just another round -- which is one of the reasons I’m writing this review at four in the morning.  When I put the game in the PC to make sure I was getting the features right, I couldn’t help but play another month of my career.  In fact, as soon as I get this review edited and e-mailed off to the powers that be, I’m going to play just one more event—which will probably turn into another month or so.  It is simply that addictive.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 raises the bar for PC golf games and marks for the first time in a while that the venerable Links series isn’t the best golf game on my hard drive.  If for some reason you’re holding off on buying this game for some reason, stop.  TW2003 is the best golf game on the market today and one of the best values on the shelves from any genre.

- Tolen Dante

(April 12, 2003)

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