... or, more accurately, TW2003 Expansion Disk.
EA made gestures toward making TW2004 more sim-like--at least now the game doesn't seem to hand out holes-in-one like Halloween candy. The levelling-up mechanic (that I thought was a last-minute fix to TW2003 to "balance" its gameplay) is still around. They implemented a putting grid, but did a half-assed job of it--the putting in the game is still a bizarre sort of Zen thing (though the caddy's advice is correct almost all the time, unlike the TW2003 caddy).
There's an actual PGA Tour Mode this time out, which is nice. And a bunch of new courses (though I haven't seen any of them yet).
Graphics are slightly better. The Game Face option is nice to play with, but ultimately it just calls attention to the fact that computers are still pretty bad at generating realistic human models on the fly. Game Face can't do skin well: characters with tanned or dark skin tend to have splotchy arms and legs, as if they have vitiligo. Hair is a problem, too: you can give the character a shaved head, but it looks like he tried to shave it himself without the help of a mirror, or like he just got out of chemotherapy.
Music--what the hell? A hodgepodge of licensed stuff, plus the TW2004 Rap, which makes the DK Rap sound like Public Enemy by comparison. Sound effects, on the other hand, are some of the best I've heard in a videogame.
I paid $29.99. Would I pay $50 for it if I had TW2003, or Mario Golf? No. In fact, if you were waiting on this to drop to $30, and you have either of the other GC golf games I listed above, I'd advise waiting for it to drop to $20.
EA made gestures toward making TW2004 more sim-like--at least now the game doesn't seem to hand out holes-in-one like Halloween candy. The levelling-up mechanic (that I thought was a last-minute fix to TW2003 to "balance" its gameplay) is still around. They implemented a putting grid, but did a half-assed job of it--the putting in the game is still a bizarre sort of Zen thing (though the caddy's advice is correct almost all the time, unlike the TW2003 caddy).
There's an actual PGA Tour Mode this time out, which is nice. And a bunch of new courses (though I haven't seen any of them yet).
Graphics are slightly better. The Game Face option is nice to play with, but ultimately it just calls attention to the fact that computers are still pretty bad at generating realistic human models on the fly. Game Face can't do skin well: characters with tanned or dark skin tend to have splotchy arms and legs, as if they have vitiligo. Hair is a problem, too: you can give the character a shaved head, but it looks like he tried to shave it himself without the help of a mirror, or like he just got out of chemotherapy.
Music--what the hell? A hodgepodge of licensed stuff, plus the TW2004 Rap, which makes the DK Rap sound like Public Enemy by comparison. Sound effects, on the other hand, are some of the best I've heard in a videogame.
I paid $29.99. Would I pay $50 for it if I had TW2003, or Mario Golf? No. In fact, if you were waiting on this to drop to $30, and you have either of the other GC golf games I listed above, I'd advise waiting for it to drop to $20.