Hardly any other company catches more flack for their sequels than EA. Their sports line is constantly under fire for not providing enough new content with each release. For once, that doesn't apply. "Tiger Woods 2004" is a remarkable improvement in every area from the huge disappointment that was the first installment on the GBA. There's still work to be done with plenty of room for improvement.
Taking pretty much everything that made the home console versions such a blast to pick up and play, "Tiger" on the Game Boy is just as enjoyable in handheld form. The menu screen doesn't seem to offer much at first. Digging deeper shows there is some real meat this time out. The career mode has actually been included, though not to the extent of its console brethren. You cannot edit a characters look, but instead pick a standard avatar from a list of real and fictional golfers. Performing well in either tournaments or the pre-determined scenarios earns cash, which is then used to boost statistics.
All of this leads up to the final challenge, a crazy 12-round tournament named the EA Sports Crown. Finishing first in each round should allow you to completely level up your character. Side games are numerous including numerous trophy balls and the ever so frustrating eagle hunt. That requires players to eagle every single par 5 on the six offered courses.
Unfortunately, it's all too easy for a variety of reasons. Most obvious is the new swing system. It feels great and it's an admirable attempt to mimic the analog swing. There's just simply no way to hook or slice the ball on accident with a D-pad. You can press down and then quickly go up millions of times and never once screw up. Putting extra power on the ball requires rapid tapping of the trigger buttons (as does putting spin on the ball) and even with that slightly awkward system, you never hit the ball anywhere else but straight ahead.
Decreasing the difficulty even further is the simply ludicrous putting mechanism. The caddy tips, which tell players how far/wide to aim are still present, though here they serve no purpose. New is a red bar that shows the player the EXACT path the ball will take. Just get the line in the hole and you're almost guaranteed to nail it. Where's the sense in that? Finally, with only four categories to level up in, you'll waste no time reaching the top levels that guarantee 300+ drives every time.
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