Vijay Singh Golf 2005 3D E3 2005 Impressions

Like everyone else who makes phone games in the US, Gameloft has started to produce 3D versions of its hit games for Verizon's V Cast service. Fijian golf prodigy Vijay Singh is native to the third dimension, as is the game of golf itself, so it's only natural that such a game would look and play better than its flattened predecessors. At least, that's the way it seemed to us in Gameloft's E3 booth.

Vijay Singh Golf 2005 3D has a lot of advantages over its predecessor other than a realistic sense of depth. The game's graphics are approaching those of the late '90s PC editions of EA's Tiger Woods series in terms of sharpness, animation, and camera work. The game sported complicated graphical effects, like lens flare, shadowing, and transparency, on the test Samsung V Cast phone. And the camera panned smoothly around the ball in midflight, too. This is useful, because it's possibly to "spin" the ball with the nav pad a little in midflight to redirect its course. For a better look at the action, the camera also displayed the capability to zoom up and out to provide an overhead view. The most striking example of the game's graphical capability, however, was probably its character animation. The swinging motion looked very realistic, from practice miniswings to full follow-throughs. We even saw Vijay jump up and tap his heels together, leprechaun style, after a great drive.

Vijay Singh Golf 2005 3D's 36 holes of action will be headed to V Cast in August. We'll try to take another look at a more advanced version of the game before then.