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TIGER WOODS IS A name associated with golf and often sport in general. He has dazzled the world with his incredible ability to hit huge drives and make big shots when they count, and his PGA Tour winnings combined with a huge Nike sponsorship have made him one of the highest paid athletes in international sport. Taking a name correlated with such a high level of quality and recognition and combining it with a major computer games company and a respected developer (Headgate Studios -- makers of PGA Championship 2000) should, in theory, produce the best golf game this reviewer has ever seen. Right?
EA Sports has always been the leader in the field when it comes to signing professional athletes. Included in Tiger Woods USA Tour 2001 (TW2001) are PGA golfers Tiger Woods (obviously), his good buddy Mark O'Meara, Justin Leonard, Stuart Appleby, Jim Furyk, Davis Love III, Lee Janzen and others. Michael Jordan is included in the game too for those of you who want to see him make his third attempt at a professional sport.
Unfortunately, EA seem to have focused all their energies on signing the players for appearance in the game, and not enough on making their graphical portrayals look good. The Tiger Woods animation looks much as it did in the first of the Tiger Woods series (TW99), but this isn't a bad thing as his animation is still wonderful. However, the animations of Michael Jordan and some of the others are laughable. The entire graphics package was a letdown, and even my PIII 600 with Matrox G400 couldn't generate a smooth frame rate on anything higher than 800x600 with details toned down. Background objects (trees, backdrops) are all two-dimensional and are very pixelated. It appears that the graphics engine has hardly been touched since the original release of TW99 and PGA Tour 98 before that. This is an issue that certainly needs to be addressed for next year's release.
The game still features picture-in-picture when you're choosing your target, as well as real-time ball tracking after you make contact. These are both nice touches, but could have been executed so much better. Of course, you can simply turn them off if you prefer the Links LS style of game.
A wide variety of play modes are available including the basic stroke play, match play, skins, tournament, the President's Cup, or best of all, the PGA Tour. In this mode you start off as an amateur and earn your Tour card and the right to play on the PGA Tour. Finish in the top twenty on the Tour for the year and you'll move on to the Tour Championship -- if not you'll be back to the amateurs to qualify. All of these gameplay modes are easy to find thanks to the new interface. This has been improved over previous versions and feels much more professional.
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