Not as goood as it should be
Positives
- Usual Tiger woods fare. The courses, golfers and flow are done well. Relatively glitch free.
Negatives
- The audio commentary is laughably bad. It's not that the quality of the audio isn't superb, it''s that the dialogue is frequently wrong. I missed an 80 foot put by an inch and it was "poor putting". In some of the rivals compeitions, the announcers will frequently declare "this is for the match" on a putt ON THE FIRST HOLE. As well, a glitch occurs when you disable the commentary. It has to be turned off every time you load the game. The menu will remain listed as "off" but you have to enable and then disable to have it stick.
- The money system, challenges and items are VERY poorly designed. Here is a perfect example. Against Arnold Palmer, I believe, you are faced with a three hole test. A par three, four and five. Gold is 8 (two birdies and an eagle) Silver is 10 (two birdies and a par) and bronze is 15. That's right. The 3rd highest rival has a challenge where bogey golf will get you 1, 000,000.
Some of the challenges are impossible, others are so easy it's not even worth bothering.
The money system is out of whack as well. The challenge above was worth a million dollars. The same challenge in the previous golfer would give you $80,000 for a bronze. You will find that before you get to Tiger woods, you will have maxed out all your abilities and money becomes irrelevant.
- The rivals stink. Past the first couple of rivals, you play 18 holes (The first two are 9 hole affairs). I have managed (not that I am even that good) to beat most of them 6up or better. On one hole, Goosen lined up his drive perpendicular to the fairway! He then dunked two balls in the water. In other words, the AI loses a step and you will frequently see the AI driving balls straight into trees, off into the water and generally make shots that don't make any sense.
- The "items" you can buy are uselss. Beyond getting the maxium modifiers. Which, unfortunatly, you can do very quickly. The entire item buying process becomes silly.
- The attributes are poorly designed. Frankly, the only attribute that seems to make any difference is distance. I don't see any measurable difference in ball striking, putting or even luck after going from 20% to 110%.
- The power meter doesn't work well. A power modifer of 110% doesn't seem to add much, if any, distance to shots.
- Putting is absurd. Some of the ideal putts are impossible (literally), some of the challenges have puts that can't be made (I tried one putt 20 times and either get the ball to roll 7 feet past the hole, or 7 feet short - trust me, I know hot to putt and it's not possible to drain this putt - it's an 80 footer that is dead straight). The green grid really stinks. I have hit puts on an even surface with no movement on the green, ten feet past the hole on a four footer. I average 1.59 putts a round, so I have managed to largely escape it, but there will be moments of extreme frustration.
So, I hate this game right? No, it's very playable and quite engaging. It just isn't nearly as good as it should be.