Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 PC Review

[Katana Man]

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 PC




Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 was only $18 at Amazon, so I couldn't pass that up.  I figured I'd give you guys my review of it.

Pros:

• The installation does allow you to install everything off of the 3 CD's so that you don't need them after installation.  That is certainly nice.
• The trackball motion is the same as Golden Tee, so the learning curve is short and easy to transition from Golden Tee.
• The graphics are the best I've seen yet for a golfing game.  Very nice for sure.
• There is one cool feature that isn't even in the arcade version: the "TrueSwing Analyzer". It shows you a diagram of your trackball motion
  and notes on things like, temp of your swing, contact with the ball, etc..  It's really nice.  When you do it perfectly, there are 5 items
  that are all in green. Otherwise, it shows you your mistakes in red.
• Nice interface to create a custom character. If you spend a good amount of time, you can actually make it look similar to yourself.
• Setting the skill level to Novice is great for new players want to play but don't know what they are doing. It's very hard to over swing or make mistakes in Novice mode.  You could almost close your eyes and still make par. This is very inviting for new players.
• You certainly can't beat the price.

Cons:

• Minumum resolution of 1024x768 is required.  Although there is an option inside the game to go as low as 800x600, you still need 1024x768 during the menu screens.   That is just poor programming, and really hinders this game from being run on arcades with TV monitors.
• No options to adjust mouse sensitivity.
• No options to adjust brightness.
• You cannot reassign keyboard shortcuts.
• You have to move your cursor on top of the player and click before you can swing.
• Club yardage is not shown. You need to start memorizing what each club is capable of.
• Estimated target flag is not shown on the map!!!  Remember how Golden Tee has the target flag that shows you your estimated ball distance and left to right position?  It's not available in this game, yet it is available in the Tiger Woods arcade game. I could not believe this feature was removed! They want you to hit "e" and watch a video of the estimated ball trajectory.  This takes a lot of time, and ends up looking at where the ball is estimated to land.  But it still very vague.  Give me the target flag back please!
• Scoreboard in between holes does not even show which hole you are on!
• Requires a monster of a machine to run this game.  A 2.0 Ghz, 512MB ram, GeForce4 TI4200 was not enough to run this game even with the graphics level turned all the way down. Graphics were so jerky, it was simply unplayable.  Even with the latest AMD64 X2 and a Geforce 7900GT, the graphics still stutter during your backswing intermittently (approximately 1 out of every 8 swings).
• Removing the all of the trackball helping aid is possible by setting it to Expert mode. This allows you to swing over 100% power with the trackball. However, Expert mode does not autoselect the club for you. So it's really hard to make this play like the arcade. Advanced mode will select the right club, but you still can't get over 100% power unless you select "Power Shot", which tends to be wild and out of control most of the time.
• Ball yardage distance is not shown as the ball is struck. You have to wait until the shot is over to see how far you drove it.
• No option for instant play.
• No option to quickly set up a quick game between friends.  It can be done, but takes way too long.
• I haven't tried it yet, but I hear that the online play costs money.
• Owner's Manual was a measly 13 page booklet. It does not cover much at all. Doesn't even cover the option settings.

Conclusion:
This game really frustrates me because of it's outstanding potential to be great, but the designers simply did a poor job at making this good for an arcade cabinet.  Outstanding graphics, but the lack of options and the increased amount of clicks and keystrokes needed to play this game make it cumbersome to play on an arade machine, especially compared to the arade version.  You will find yourself using the mouse cursor, clicking, hitting keys, and watching the animations a lot more than needed. 

[IG-88]

This game really frustrates me because of it's outstanding potential to be great, but the designers simply did a poor job at making this good for an arcade cabinet.  Outstanding graphics, but the lack of options and the increased amount of clicks and keystrokes needed to play this game make it cumbersome to play on an arade machine, especially compared to the arade version.  You will find yourself using the mouse cursor, clicking, hitting keys, and watching the animations a lot more than needed. 

Hmmm....great potential but the designers simply did a poor job. Oh and outstanding graphics. Sounds like damned near everything made from the last 10 years.

WTF ever happened to playability? Details! It's all about the details!  Typical EA crap, and they'll keep making these as long as they sell.

Great review tho....

[kujina]

Why dont you try one of the previous years versions.

[DigitalFusion]

• Estimated target flag is not shown on the map!!!  Remember how Golden Tee has the target flag that shows you your estimated ball distance and left to right position?  It's not available in this game, yet it is available in the Tiger Woods arcade game. I could not believe this feature was removed! They want you to hit "e" and watch a video of the estimated ball trajectory.  This takes a lot of time, and ends up looking at where the ball is estimated to land.  But it still very vague.  Give me the target flag back please!

I have the 07 version installed on my cab.  I dont know if its different or not, but on the left side u can pull up a menu that says spot target.  It will zoom to the point where the ball is expected to land.  No video of ball flight or anything.  The menu text is nearly impossible to read, but it is there

[Zeno]

I was so excited when I got '06 on sale.  I love the games on PS2 and couldn't wait to use my cab with trackball.

The PC game sucks! 

Nothing like the PS2 in terms of playability (word?). 

Back to GT 2000 in MAME for me.

[tommy]

I don't think you can fault EA for not planning for this game being run on a PC Mame cab and the limitations it causes.

Good review.