| I was introduced to
computer golf when I first played Golf included in Microsoft’s Entertainment
Pack Series for Windows 3.0. I quickly found that simulation was far from
being reality. Shortly afterwards Accolade came along with Jack Nicklaus’s
Signature Edition series. This version came a little closer, and I played
with it for a number of years. Now Electronic Art (EA Sports) has Tiger
Woods 99 and has raised the bar even further.
There were speed improvements moving from Compact to Typical to Complete.
The sound and video clips enhanced the fun but were by no means necessary.
 Play
Starting with the main menu, I could see that Tiger Woods ?99 has more
bells and whistles than the previous two I played.
Graphics in each of the programs (main and add-on courses) is quite
good. Although we are not quite at the quality of DVD films, graphics in
the past few years has reached a more-than-acceptable quality for this
game.
The Swing Meter is the game’s basic tool. With a golf ball in the center
of the meter, you click on it to start the "back swing"
or use the space bar on the keyboard to do the same. A thermometer type
bar displays the club’s rated distance. A second click on the golf ball
(or space bar) reverses the bar display and starts the forward swing. Near
the top of the bar display there is a "target" line.
Any second click less than this produces a shot of less distance for that
selected club. Any thing over 100% produces (up to about a 120% limit)
a greater distance. Once back to 0% the ball is clicked the third time.
If your timing is exact (and my rarely was) your shot is as straight as
an arrow. Anything before the 0% mark produces a hook and anything after
the mark produces a slice. How close to 0% you are will determine how far
left or right of center you end up.
Both of the previous golf games I played used this same type of methodology.
However, EA has also added draw and fade shots as well as backspin and
topspin shots. Other displays included with the Swing Meter tool include
wind direction and speed; your distance to the pin; your height above or
below the pin; your lie (feet above or below the ball); and the type swing
(full, pitch, chip, bump and run, or putt).
In the "Modes of Play" menu, you define course conditions including:
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Wind
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Fairways (wet, dry or normal)
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Rough (light or heavy)
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Greens (fast, normal or slow. I thought of them as country club, muni or
cow pasture)
You also determine the type of game. Choices include:
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stroke play (playing alone trying to attain par)
-
tournament (including playing via the Internet with other golfers) skins
and shoot-outs
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match play (yourself and one computer player vs. two other computer players)
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foursomes (yourself and three other computer players) or
-
driving range.
After you’ve chosen the course and game, the "Options" mode allows you
to define how well your opponents play with the 14 clubs you’ve chosen.
You determine what each individual club can do – from the percentage of
power available with each club (10% to 100% at 5% intervals) to its path
of trajectory (slice, draw, fade or hook). Then you choose from the following
list to play against or with: Tiger Woods himself, Mark O’Meara, Tom Kite,
Davis Love III, Lee Janzen, Brad Faxon, Craig Stadler or Peter Jacobsen.
The program further defines the strengths and weakness of each player beyond
the parameters you’ve given.
Starting out, I did what I normally do before a game, I headed for the
driving range. I wanted to get a feel for the program. Here you can use
any of the clubs as you would on a normal course. In addition, the program
also has a chipping green, a putting green and a sand trap to get used
to how the clubs respond in those situations. To date I still am not consistent
with any type of shot. It seems as if the computer randomly adds a "flub-factor"
in with a swing. But then again my own golf game seems to have the same
problem.
Included with the basic program are three courses: Pebble Beach, TPC
at Summerlin and TPC at Sawgrass. Additional courses available are Colonial
Country Club, Cog Hill, Bay Hill Club, TPC at Southwind, TPC at Las Colinas
and TPC of Scottsdale. List price for the basic program is $49. However,
I have seen it (and the six other add-on courses bundled with it) at Sam’s
club for $35.
System requirements
Minimum requirements, according to the package, are as follows:
Windows 95/98, Pentium 133, 32 MB of RAM, 100 MB of Hard Drive Space (more
on that later), 1 MB PCI graphics card that supports 800x600 16 bit color,
4X CD, SoundBlaster or 100% compatible sound card, DirectDraw 5.0, Keyboard,
Mouse.
Recommended, however, is the following: P-200, 64 MB of RAM,
4 MB video card supporting 1600x1200 resolution, SoundBlaster 16/32/or
AWE 32 sound card.
The game also supports the following video accelerator cards: 3Dfx Voodoo,
Voodoo2, Voodoo2 with SLI, or Voodoo Rush; Intel 740; nVIDIA Riva 128;
ATI 3D Rage Pro.
I tried this game on two different systems. The first, an Intel P-200
MMX with 32 Megs of RAM, a 2 Meg video card, a 20X CD ROM, and a SoundBlaster
16 sound card. The second was a Pentium II/350 with 128 Megs of RAM, and
8 Meg video card with an ATI Rage Pro 128, a SoundBlaster 64AWE sound card
and a 36X CD ROM. There was “some” difference between the two systems,
but not enough for me to want to upgrade my 200 MMX system. Graphics drew
a little faster on the Pentium II/350. Whether it was the graphics card
or the extra memory, I don’t know. The sound seemed a little richer as
well. Maybe it was the speakers.
Installation
Installation is straight forward with a minimum of input. There are four
installation options:
-
Complete (505 MB) Everything is loaded on the hard drive golfers,
sound and video clips, etc.
-
Typical (290 MB) Sound and video clips not included. Must leave
CD in drive when playing.
-
Compact ("minimal" with only 65 MB of files) Bare essentials loaded
on the hard drive and use of CD is required
-
Laptop I didn’t try the 'Laptop’ option.
Would I recommend this game? Yes, and without hesitation. The only "fault"
I could find, is that unlike the Nicklaus series, this game does not allow
you to create your own course. However, it far surpasses that series in
every other venue. Is it frustrating? Yes, but no more-so than the real
game.
Tym
Myers is a Captain with one of the major air carriers that serves San Antonio.
He has been a member of Alamo PC since August 1995.
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