Reviewed by: Funkadelic
Rated: 
Posted on: 11/23/99
EA Sports has joined forces with Tiger Woods, yet again, to bring another golf game to the PlayStation bearing his name and likeness. But this time there is a catch: EA has transformed Tiger Woods into Cyber Tiger, giving him a new appearance and even more super golfing abilities as a result. You'll have to master Tiger as a kid, teenager, and adult golfer before you'll be able to make the transformation to Cyber Tiger. Let's see how this arcade-style golf game stacks up against its main competition on the PlayStation, Hot Shots Golf.
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| Play as a young Tiger Woods! |
As with most of EA's sports games, the first thing you'll notice about Cyber Tiger is the huge number of options and modes available. Your best bet would be to start by visiting the practice facility to test your golfing abilities. Once there, you can practice your drive, chipping, and putting, all of which will prepare you for the large selection of golf games you can play. You can choose from a variety of single- and multi-player games (up to four players with a Multi Tap) and can adjust a number of different options to your liking. It seems this game was designed with the Multi Tap in mind, because several of the modes support the device, with a Shoot-Out mode (sudden-death match) and Foursomes mode (2-on-2 team match) being just two of the available ones. I don't know how many people will gather four friends just to play a golf game, but it does give the game plenty of replay value.
The real meat of this game is in the Career mode, where you select one of several characters (golfers) to take through an entire career. These characters vary in appearance, stats, and sex, but Tiger Woods is the only professional golfer included. You start the Career mode playing as a kid golfer (a young Tiger, anyone?) and will "graduate" after placing first in a tour (Junior, Amateur, and Pro). The character stats are appropriate for each age level — kid, teenager, and adult — with the adult level obviously being superior to the other two. Still, you can choose to continue to play as a kid or teenaged golfer after you have graduated to adult status. Don't expect to catch a glimpse of Cyber Tiger until you have completely mastered your game.
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| Tiger as a teenager. |
Now on to the actual gameplay mechanics. This game includes your standard golf rules and regulations, but what will make this game appealing to golfers and non-golfers alike is the addition of power-ups. These power-ups must be earned at the driving range before you start a tour in the Career mode. The object here is to try to nail a series of targets (bull's-eyes, submarines, blimps, etc.) that will award you with one of several different power-ups once hit. (Power-ups and equipment upgrades will also be rewarded to the player after he or she performs particulary well on a series of holes.) These power-ups include the following:
The addition of power-ups definitely makes the game more fun and exciting when compared with a regular game of golf, but I found only a few of them to be of any use, namely, the Ghost Ball and Mulligan Ball power-ups.
Another problem with the power-ups is they lack personality. Sure, they have different abilities, but there is no graphical difference among them. For example, the Ghost Ball power-up displays a picture of a ghost in the inventory screen, where you select the power-ups, while the Gum Ball shows a picture of a golf ball stuck in gum. Naturally, I was expecting a ghost shape to appear after I hit the Ghost Ball, or a blotch of pink gum to smear on the ground after the Gum Ball landed. No such luck. Overall, the power-ups add some wackiness and a bit of strategy to the game, but they could have been done better.
Regarding control, Cyber Tiger lets the player use either analog or digital control. However, you will need to move your thumb to the digital pad occasionally if you choose to use analog control exclusively (more on that in a second). Digital control uses the standard three-click swing meter, which is certainly uninspired, but gets the job done nevertheless. For those of you looking for a bit more innovation and some better shot handling, the analog pad provides a good alternative, albeit one with a learning curve. The nice thing about the analog control is, for the most part, it's quite accurate. It simulates a real golf swing, in that you must first pull the left (or right) analog stick back for the backswing, then push it all the way forward to execute the downswing. As you move the analog stick forward, you can push the stick to the left to draw your shot or to the right to fade it.
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| Earn power-ups and special abilities at the driving range. |
A nice feature of Cyber Tiger is you have the option to control the spin of the ball while in flight (on drives and fairway shots only), which will affect how and where it lands. The problem, however, is you can only use the D-pad to control this feature, which means you must quickly move your thumb to the D-pad to control the spin. It's not that big of a deal, but I would have liked to use the extra analog stick for this feature, since only one of them is used. At any rate, you can switch between analog and digital control at any point during the game, so you'll need to experiment a little to decide which you like better. I must also mention that the vibration feature of the Dual Shock controller is put to good use, which makes a long distance putt all the more satisfying when you sink it.
While the graphics in Cyber Tiger won't win any awards, they do provide a cartoony look that fits the arcade nature of the game perfectly. The golfers themselves are nicely detailed and provide realistic swings. Yet, some of their winning and losing animations leave a lot to be desired, and sometimes they won't even display one. The biggest problem with the graphics concerns the the courses and backgrounds. There are five courses (Spyglass Hill is the featured course) in the game and they all suffer from heavy pixellation and lack life (no spectators or many animated objects). Some are better modeled than others, but they all contain some type of graphical flaw. On a positive note, they're all very colorful and look pretty decent when static (i.e., before you hit the ball). You can adjust the view using the R1 & R2 buttons and can zoom in on your shot before taking a swing, so the messy course graphics never really hamper the gameplay. Finally, if you hit a shot that you really liked, you can view a replay of it to relive the moment.
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| The graphics are decent, but they look much better before the ball is hit. |
Unlike the graphics, the sound in this game is phenomenal. I would have to say these are some of the best ambient sound effects I have ever heard in a golf game. You'll hear everything from a plane going by to a cell phone ringing in the background. Of course, you will hear plenty of birds chirping away, and even a few odd sound effects — like sneezing, coughing, and arguing — can be heard as well. If you connect a pair of headphones to your TV and close your eyes for a second, it really feels like you're standing in the middle of a golf course. Still, if you don't like the ambient sounds, or grow tired of them, you can always have music play in the background instead. The music ranges in style and quality, but it never seems out of place. There are also some annoying, and sometimes inappropriate (wrong reaction to a shot), Tiger comments that you can toggle on or off from the option menu. These are quick and harmless voice samples that vary depending on how well you hit your shot.
Lengthy load times are present throughout the game, but on the course there is very little delay between shots. When it's time to play the next hole, however, some extra load time greets you. In all fairness, Cyber Tiger's loading time isn't as bad as other golf games', but I didn't like having to wait to save my game during a match. Each time I wanted to save my game, I had to wait to be taken to a menu screen, only to have to endure another loading screen before I could return to the match. This may be a problem for those who like to save their position after successful eagle, birdie, or par attempts. Then again, in a real game of golf, there is no option to save your game for the day just because you secured the number one position.
In the end, Cyber Tiger is an enjoyable golf game that has plenty of replay value due to its huge variety of modes and multiplayer games. The power-ups are a nice addition, and analog control is a welcomed feature. After all is said and done, though, this is still a golf game, and it won't be attracting too much attention from people who dislike the sport, or from those who are into quick-fix action games. However, if you're a fan of golf, Tiger Woods, or Hot Shots Golf, this is a safe buy. Otherwise, you're better off playing it safe and renting this one first.
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