Pwned by Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 - EA Sports - Playstation 2
First Impressions.
The major improvements touted for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (TW2k6) over its predecessor were more precise control of how the ball is hit, and more precise control in putting. For those not in the know, with 2k5 you were limited in your ball striking to changing your stance (open, close, center) and putting spin on the ball once it was hit. The former is not nearly granular enough (especially for those of us who grew up with Jack Nicklaus and Links on the PC), and the latter is just plain bunk (influencing the ball after it’s in the air? Please.)
What they’ve done in 2k6 is taken advantage of that second analog stick as something other than a duplicate of the first. You still swing with the left stick, but now you control where on the ball you hit with the right stick. It allows a much finer control of loft and curve than the previous methods of stance and swinging diagonally.
Putting is actually more than a mere guessing game. Instead of having your caddy just make up numbers for where you should aim (and usually be wrong about them), the grid is back. Now you can see the lay of the green and figure it out for yourself. There’s a simple “ideal path” aid, but you still need to control your putting power. No more “point and shoot” where 100% of a swing represents the ball going the distance you measured out (on a flat green, anyhow).
They’ve also tightened up the physics. You can’t pull out the driver on the fairway and expect to get anywhere. And if you try to get under the ball with a 3 wood, don’t expect much more than a clump of grass in your face. In other words, I don’t think I’ll be finishing up many rounds at Troon in the low 50s.
There are a few places where I’m not sure if it’s me, or th physics engine that’s on drugs. One is coming out of a hazard. Sometimes you’ll be on top of sand (it’ll show 80%), and you’ll come up 2 clubs short. Sometimes you’ll be buried in the sand, and you’ll go 50% beyond what the club would have done from a perfect lie. This bears further investigation for several reasons. First, my characters stats are very low, and the low recovery stat may have a large influence on this. Second, I don’t know how much influence varying levels of shot boost have on this. Given my penchant for finding bunkers at Reflection Bay, I should probably play a practice round there without using boost and see what results I get.
There’s a bunch of neat multi-player games available, and we’ve only started to play with those. Maybe I’ll post more after playing with them.
Overall, it’s not staggeringly different from 2k5. Looks about the same. The play is different, but only because of the refined response of the clubs. It did seem a bit ridiculous that I would be in first place in every tournament by the time I got to the 15th hole of the first round. That didn’t happen here. I didn’t make the cut thanks to Reflection Bay completely and totally owning me.
I could make suggestions, but I’ll hold off until I’ve played a bit more. If only I could play REAL golf this well.