Review by: Craig Miller
Published: October 4, 1998

Fall is nearly upon us; the leaves are turning colors and there is a slight nip in the air. The kids are back in school and the days are getting shorter. This is the time of year when a person’s thoughts turn towards…golf? This may seem like an odd time of year to be releasing a golf game, but EA Sports has done so with its release of Tiger Woods 99. To EA’s credit, golf has become pretty much a year round sport now. Tournaments are held all over the world and amateur duffers will have something to play when they can’t get out on the real links. Then again, maybe I live too far north and many of you reading this are wondering what the heck I am talking about. With that in mind, let’s talk golf — Tiger Woods 99 Style.

I have played golf games since the days of Leaderboard Golf on the Commodore 64. Those early golf games used to be good tools to test how fast your system was by the amount of time it took to draw the screen. I remember sitting there for minutes between shots. EA has termed this type of golf game “postcard golf” due to the fact that you only see static pictures of each position your ball is in. EA claims they have put an end to this kind of golf sim with their new technology. In Tiger Woods 99, there are a variety of different camera angles and if you have a 3D accelerator card you can follow the ball’s flight as the course pans by fluidly. Well, that’s the idea, anyway. If you want this feature to work well, you must have a high end PII class system with a Voodoo II card. Even so, don’t expect to turn the graphic detail up to the max and use 16-bit textures, unless you want the movement to be as choppy as the English Channel. I got an acceptable frame rate when I used the high graphic setting and 8 bit textures. With that said, the graphics are still very good overall. I didn’t see too much of a difference when I bumped all the settings up to max. I just wish that companies would make sure that the game will be playable at max detail level without having to buy a $4,000 computer.

Tiger Woods 99 is basically a continuation of the PGA Tour golf series. Those who have played that series will be able to step right in and play this one easily. There are a bunch of enhancements that make this game different from the old PGA Tour. All of the “big” stars are here including my favorite, Tom Kite. When making up your own golfer, you can choose which pro he/she is going to behave like; they will then look like that person, which is kind of odd. This is the drawback of having motion captured players. New features abound in this game and set it apart from what you have come to expect. With EA’s new FlashDraw technology the game screens are drawn extremely quickly. Actually, you really can’t even see them being drawn. This allows the user to complete an entire 18 holes in about 30 minutes.

EA has not wasted the money they gave Tiger Woods: he is all over the game. There is a picture of him in just about every menu. Tiger also appears in little movie sequences where he gives you tips on 17 different subjects. These tips are generally helpful and don’t pop up unless asked for, and hence aren’t as intrusive as you might think.