Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 Controls Spotlight
Just like Tiger's in real life, your swing in the new EA Sports PGA game will be changing. Read on to find out how.
Normally, several hundred words about the mechanics of a golf swing would be enough to put even the most ardent links fans to sleep, but when it comes to the new Tiger Woods game from EA Sports, the new controls warrant the attention. Much like Tiger's new and improved swing in real life, the swing mechanics in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour have received a long-overdue face-lift. We've spent a lot of time with the new golf game to get a feel for how different Tiger's virtual swing is from previous entries in the series. In our latest hands-on preview, we take a look at these differences to show you exactly how, like Tiger's, your swing will change in 2005.
It's no news that last year's Tiger Woods game was a tad on the easy side, even at the highest difficulty level. The combination of a forgiving swing system and some potent controls for power-ups and ball spin meant that 300-yard-plus drives were commonplace, and placing the ball close to the pin even from 150 yards or longer was more expected than a pleasant surprise. As anyone who's played a few rounds will tell you, golf shouldn't be that easy, even if you're controlling some of the best players in the game.
For that reason, the development team at EA Sports has endeavored to come up with a few new twists on the control scheme that add more challenge and more subtlety to the golf swing than ever before. It has done so by following the direction many other EA Sports titles have taken in the past year or so: working the right analog stick into a much more prominent role in gameplay. Just as in last year's game, the left analog stick is used to control your backswing, and just as in previous years, you'll want to swing in as straight a line as possible. Push too far left or right in your backswing or your follow-through, and your ball flight path will suffer accordingly.
Where things differ from last year is with the newly introduced right analog controls. Essentially, the right stick is used to put spin on the ball and control the fade or draw of your ball's flight. This is the case in both the console and PC versions of the game--for the first time, Tiger 06 for PC will support Logitech dual analog controllers, in addition to the standard two- and three-click mouse swing methods. A small representation of your ball on the tee can be found in the lower right corner of your screen, and by aiming a blue icon anywhere on that ball, you can control exactly where your club face makes contact with the ball, and thus the path your ball takes in the air. It's a fairly intuitive system: Aim to the left of the ball, and you'll draw the ball in that direction; aim to the right and you'll pull off an effective fade. The further toward the edge of the virtual ball you aim your icon, the more drastic the effect will be on your ball's flight path. Furthermore, extracting maximum draw or fade on your ball will require quick timing for your backswing. This is because when you place the blue icon on the furthest edge of your virtual ball, the icon automatically returns back to the center; you'll need to reel off your swing quickly, just as the icon reaches that outer edge, in order to really put some swerve on your ball.
In addition to controlling draw and fade, the icon also controls what kind of and (to a lesser degree) how much spin you put on the ball. For topspin, aim high on the ball--but be careful not to aim too high, or you'll risk topping the ball and looking like a weekend public-course hacker. For that all-important backspin, aim low on the ball and watch as your Titleist (or whatever brand of ball you prefer) heads back toward the pin, as if drawn by a magnet. The new swing mechanism also lets you design your shot before your club makes contact with the ball. Do you want to draw your ball slightly, with some topspin? Aim slightly left and up on the ball. How about pulling off a nice fade shot with a touch of backspin? Move that icon diagonally left and down, and you're in business.
Though using the shape stick, as it's known, to control your shot will put some minor spin on the ball once it launches, you can still add that extra spin to the ball by repeatedly pressing the appropriate button and aiming with the left analog stick as it travels through the air. Similarly, you can still power up your shot during your backswing, just as in last year's game.
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