Product: Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf
Developer: ZioSoft
Web Site: www.ziosoft.com
Category: Game – Sports
Price: $29.95
Requirements: Pocket PC:
Casio Cassiopeia E-125, EM-500, E-200
HP Jornada 560 series
Compaq IPAQ 3600, 3700, and 3800 series
NTT Docomo G-Fort
UR There @migo 600-C
Toshiba Genio-e
NEC Mobile Pro P300
Audiovox Maestro PDA1032
O2 XDA
Siemens SX45

Software:
Microsoft ActiveSync
Desktop Windows 95 / 98 / Me / 2000 / NT / XP

Pocket PC OS:
Windows CE 3.x (Pocket PC 2000)
Pocket PC 2002

Pocket PC CPU:
StrongARM / MIPS

Color:
16-bit Color

Storage Memory:
5.5MB of RAM

In the world of sports simulations, golf continues to be one of the most popular. Now ZioSoft, the leader in golf games for the Pocket PC, brings us the biggest name in golf today. Using their experience developing golf games, ZioSoft now brings us Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf from EA Sports. You now have the opportunity to play one of two world-class courses against four of the best players, including Tiger himself. Better yet, you can play as Tiger Woods. If you are a fan of golf simulations, especially ZioGolf, this title is worth checking out.

Multiple golf modes are available including Practice, Stroke Play, Skins Game, Match Play, and more. Combined with different grouping options and two courses, this gives you a lot of variety. You can play at either an amateur or pro level. Each player can create a golfer or play as Tiger Woods, Justin Leonard, Mark O’Meara, or Brad Faxon. A wide range of options, including Green Grid, Landscape Mode, camera views, and mulligans, allow the player to customize the game and the graphics.

The two courses included, Badlands Gold Club and The Las Vegas Golf Club, are realistically recreated and graphically impressive. Each hole is accurately simulated and all the trees, sand, fairways, roughs, lakes, and greens respond realistically. This is really a beautiful game to watch as well as play. The game feels very realistic and is fun to play. The interface is well designed and the animations are very smooth.

The screen interface includes the wind speed and direction, current club, map of the hole, and the current status of the player shooting. Everything is easy to read and well laid out on the screen. One of the best features of the game is a Ball-Cam that allows you to follow the ball in the air.

The music and sound effects are very clear and pleasing, although after a while you will probably want to turn them off. Plus I definitely recommend using the Green Grid as it can be very difficult to see how the greens “break” without it.

I really enjoyed playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf. While this is a great game, there are still a few things that would have improved it. There are no voices in the game. It would have been a lot more realistic if the golfers had the voices of the real players and made comments throughout the game. When swinging, there is always a delay from the time you tap to the input being registered, so you always need to anticipate the power and swing points. The power scale does not change as you get closer to the hole, so combined with the swing delay, you will find it difficult to accurately swing when you are within 5 yards of the hole. Better learn to tap quickly. Finally, while the holes at each course are accurately simulated, the background view does not change. There is only one background picture of each course, so you do not get an accurate view of what the course really looks like from the position and direction you are viewing the hole. All these points are minor and will not prevent you from enjoying this game. While a little expensive for a Pocket PC game, most likely due to the licensing with EA Sports, Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf is well worth it for true golf fans.

ZioSoft has expanded their line of golf games by bringing this product to the Pocket PC. Combining the top name in golf, Tiger Woods, with the best publisher of golf games for the Pocket PC, ZioSoft, gives us a game that all golf fans will enjoy. I highly recommend Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf for all couch-potato golfers.

Pros
Realistic graphics and animations
Well designed screens
Landscape and Portrait modes
scenery
Realistic physics
Ball-Cam

Cons
Input delays
No voices
Expensive
Limited background

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 Stars.


--Harvey Lee
PocketPC Editor