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New Mouse Swing & 3D Golfers Revitalize

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 28
Date: September 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Having purchased all the Links games and courses dating back to its inception, I have to unhappily admit that over the last couple years things have languished. Updates have given us more of the same great physics we've been used to and slightly tweaked the graphic textures and added a mouse based power swing, but for myself and many there just weren't a compelling lot of improvements. That said, it is with great enthusiasm I can heartily recommend Links 2003. It's made playing fun again, and this is mainly attributable to the new real time mouse swing.

Previously I have always been a proponent of the classic tri-click method, which while functional, is a bit sterile to interact with your golfing avatar. The new Links provides a brand new control method. You aim first in the classical method of pin placement, click an image of the club, then you have full control over your new 3D golfers swing. Move your mouse or trackball backwards to create an appropriate power percentage on backswing, then launch forward straight or slightly skewed to get your hook and slice, fade or draw. It definitely takes some time to get used to after the static method for so long. :) I had tried their powerswing implementation over the years, but always found it too cumbersome and inelegant. This way you can actually begin to gauge distances for the trackball vs the ultimate distances your shots produce. Quite nice.

The graphics have continued to be tweaked as well, the interaction of different ground types has now been softened. When you're near a bunker, the grass and sand combine to look much more lifelike than previous sharply delineated versions. Shadows have finally made an appearance and it makes quite a difference viewing the panorama as you look out at the vista of the hole in front of you. Tip: use the close up view in golfer preferences to see the most texturing of the ground near you. Things blur a bit more with normal and panoramic view. Redraws are about 1 to 2 seconds slower than previous versions I've found, not bad on an AMD 1900XP w/ WinXP Pro. Worked great with my workhorse Matrox G400 Max, but had some trouble with the Matrox Parhelia 512 [lack of golfer translucent shadows, some dialogue box corruption].

Your golfer is now a 3D construct, no longer an image captured digitized version. This allows for a wider range of movement as well as full control during swing using the new real time swing method. With modern video cards w/ hw lighting they look great, they're composed of *a lot* of polys. Another feature I've liked has been carried forward, and that is customizing your player to use your personal club distances, so you can effectively put yourself and your game out on these courses. Extending from that, you can now join career mode and go through Q school and start in tourneys.

I picked up the 20 're-done' course collection as well, sort of a greatest hits. But it also allows you to convert all your previous Links courses so you can use the elusive Pebble Beach you got a few versions back. I don't use the online play features or the course designer, but they're back and updated as well.

I played Links386 / Links LS era courses into the ground back in the day racking up the rounds over and over. Finally, I think this version will hold my attention again thanks to the new play method. It's always been the best golf sim, now it is the best golf game again. Highly recommended.

Very mixed baggage and no longer the undisputed champion.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 49 / 51
Date: October 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

(Having never owned "Links 386" -the first installment of the critically-acclaimed Links series- Links LS (1996) was the first Links golf game that I ever purchased and when I did it totally blew me away: I was in awe of the awesome photorealistic graphics and the incredibly-realistic ball flight and ball-surface physics. The golfers were also photorealistic digital images. The game was a die-hard sim, yet extremely fun and accessible at the same time. I was instantly hooked on LS and as a result I've played more hours of this game and its sequels than all other computer games combined, by far.

Up until several days ago, LS 99 was my current version of Links. I was unable to upgrade to LS 2000 (I was out of the country) or Links 2001. Which brings me to my first "upgrade" in four years -Links 2003. After having played the game extensively for several days now, I have very mixed feelings about this newest installment. In some ways it seems significantly improved over LS 99, but in just as many ways it seems to be substantially inferior. Because I wish to expound upon every component in this dissertation, I've decided to simply list the Pros and Cons.

PROS

1. The graphics are more 3D and much more detailed than LS's: The shrubbery and foilage around trees and roughs is very detailed, photorealistic, and very dense. With a close-up view of your golfer, you can now see detailed blades of grass in fairways and greens. Sand bunkers look great.

2. The addition of the APCD (Arnold Palmer Course Designer) is huge: From my understanding, although it's very complicated and not beginner-oriented, it's hands-down the most powerful course designer in any golf game.

3. The addition of the real-time swing: I've sampled this feature in other golf games and liked the concept but not the implementation. Likewise, I've had little luck with Link's implementation as well and have found it tedious and extraordinarily difficult.

4. A plethora of golf courses: Betwixt the 6 2003 courses, the 20 Championship courses, user courses(from Links 2001 made with the APCD), and my converted LS courses, I have 60 altogether!

5. Options galore: As with LS 99 there are simply smorgasbords of options.

6. Excellent in-flight and ball-surface physics: Links has always been the benchmark in this category and this year is no different. No other game comes close.

CONS

1. No Virtual Tournament: This was a huge reason why I played LS so much.

2. Fairways, greens, and roughs are "too" clean looking -to the point of being "spartan"- and look like artificial turf. The ball even bounces and rolls off roughs like it's a thick layer of artificial turf. It even "sounds" like it.

3. Big, cluttered menu interface: The condensed and organized interface of LS 99 makes 2003's look like a homecrafted Kindergarten design.

4. Extremely ponderous load times: On my 1.7 Ghz processor, screen redraws take forever, adding another camera view on the main window slows the framerate down to a nil, and even jumping from one pregame menu to another takes a long time. Totally unacceptable.

5. Polygonal golfers: I actually prefer digital golfers. These polygonal ones look cartoonish and clash with Link's otherwise photorealism. A motley combination.

6. Unrealistically adept A.I. golfers: Real-life A.I. counterparts such as Sergio Garcia and Parnevik hit every drive straight and birdie every hole. Microsoft did a shamefully-poor job in this area. Even when I created a new computer golfer and set his skill level to the lowest possible, he was still a decent golfer.

Overall, Links 2003 is very mixed baggage. In several ways it seems to be a (close copy) rehash of "Jack Nicklaus 6: Golden Bear Challenge": The fairways, greens, and roughs are more cartoony-looking, the golfers are polygonal and cartoonish (while Links LS's were digital), and most notably, some surface and tree striking sounds are now less realistic and cheesier -similar to Jack Nicklaus 6. The swing meter and other features even seem inferior and (close copy) from JN6.

All things considered, Links 2003 is a very good golf game on its own merits and still the best golf SIM, but with its major shortcomings and horrendously-implemented real-time swing I'm still ambivalent as to whether this latest installment is an "upgrade" or a "downgrade."

Two years to produce a mess...........

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: October 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I cant believe Microsoft worked on this for two years and came out with the biggest mistake possible. For those of you who own links 2001, you will be exremely disappointed. ... I couldnt believe it. I hated it, but I wanted to give it time and leave it up to the jury. So I called all my online Links buddies and said go buy it so we can play online. They did and like me couldnt believe they had wasted their money. The graphics in some areas are wonderful, such as the trees and bushes and course layouts. But on the other hand, the golfers look fake, the clubs look fake,the sounds are fake,and the ball flight patterns are not realistic. The first drive I hit it took almost 12 seconds for it to come to a stop. I've never even seen Tigers drive hang in the air for 12 seconds. Unfortunately, the game takes extremely long to render scenes and scroll menu options and I have a pentium 4, 1.8 GH, and 512 Megs of ram. We gave it 2 weeks. As of today 7 of my friends have returned this game and we are now back to playing our 2001 championsip edition "By far this best links game available".I suggest to all links players or wanna soon be links players not to waste your time, money, patience, or computer resources on this huge disappointment. Go out and buy links 2001 Championship edition while you still can and it's still cheap. Thank You Microsoft, once again....

links 2003

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Tell Mr.Whatley from Montgomery Alabama,Oklahoma enjoyed the game that we handed your hat to you, that your knowledge of links was not correct.Up grade you video card and you will enjoy links better than you enjoyed the OU game!

C'mon Big Patch !

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

God that PATCH beter be atleast 80mb. Wow. What happended to the course details. The older courses look better than the new ones.

What a fiasco!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: October 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Microsoft has ruined their reputation with the Links series by producing this error filled, bug infested fiasco. Unless you are playing at home by yourself, this game is unplayable!

It is almost impossible to go online, and launch a game with 4 to 6 players. And if you are lucky enough to launch, if someone quits, you are out of luck as there is no feature to allow the host to drop the player and continue, or resume without him such as on Links 2001.

And, if you are lucky enough to play a game, but wanted to chat with your buddies, you probably ruined your game by accidently hitting the space bar and causing your player animation to swing prematurely. These bugs, and there are many more, should have been caught if this game was beta tested, but obviously it was not.

Also, this game seems to be "somewhat" incompatible with Windows XP as lots of people cannot even launch from the MSN Zone if they have Windows XP. Or at least, Windows XP is not helpful, even with tons of ram.

People are even having problems launching their game when using unique avatars on their players.

Links 2001 was great! This game is horrible to the 3rd degreee!

Do not buy this game until you read about a patch(s) being available. Someone at Microsoft, if not already, should be fired over this game!

Bugs Galore!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Don't buy this game until Microsoft produces the first patch, but it will take several to fix this abortion. It seems Microsoft did not test this game with a Beta edition, but actually are using their paying customers as Beta testers on this game.

When playing this game online, it is impossible to chat to other participants as on prior editons because your player may start a swing from touching the space bar, a very obvious bug the designers failed to correct.

Also, on Links 2001, a group of online players could continue a game if one player was dropped or lost their connection. Not in this newer version of Links 2003, as your entire group is screwed if this happens! What was Microsoft thinking?

The game also takes forever to launch when playing online, even if you have an optimum broadband connection, and the latest Pentium 4 processors, plenty of Ram and the latest video cards. A few of us are starting to wonder if it is even compatible with Windows XP, as it loads so slow on that OS.

Microsoft should start over from scratch and refund anyone that bought this game. As for me, I broke my CD's out of frustration.

Lousy Links 2003

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: October 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I agree completely with the reviewer who panned this game. I own
all previous Links games and all the courses. This was a great
disappointment. Unfortunately, I couldn't return it, since I had
opened it. The graphics are poor compared to Links 2001, and the
players look as though they're painted on the screen. I removed
the game from my machine and am trying to forget how I wasted my
money.

I think is one of the best golf games out there.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: October 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been a huge fan of the Links golf series since playing Links 386, now Microsoft has released its best effort to date. This application is made for the armchair golfer of all ages.

The installation was simple and straight forward with no complications during the install. I was able to get the application up and running in Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP professional. I was impressed by the graphics and how realistic they have become from previous versions. I was also impressed by the fact that previous version courses could be converted with the utility included.

Nice additions have been made with a new swing type and the addition of the putt path when you are on the green to give a better chance of sinking the long one on the first try. One thing that I found nice is the web interface connection that comes up at the intro screen; however you do need an active connection.

Loading and rendering were above average as long as you have a 3D video card and that you can tailor the game to your needs making this head and shoulders above all others out there. I also like the new addition of the "New Record" feature that lets you know your longest drive or putt by course or overall play.

The best new feature is the fact that you can now setup and play an entire golf season, so now you can setup leagues, run tournaments and even have skins competitions all from the comfort of you own home and it cost a lot less.

The game has several new courses included and there are a number of websites you can download additional courses from. Speaking of additional course I also received the Links 2003 Championship courses as well.

New Realtime Swing reason enough to upgrade.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: October 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

It seems like most of the complaints here are about the online play. I don't play online, so this review is addressed to those who don't bother with that aspect of the game.
The addition of the real time swing is enough for me to recommend this game. The double-click interface had started boring me and I never could get into Powerstroke. The putting is more difficult than clicking and I think they could have done a better job with iron play (I hit woods easier than irons in this game, which isn't what happens in real life to most golfers). Still, I find it far more entertaining than the click method. The graphics look better than 2001, at least on my system (AMD 1.2 Thunderbird with an ATI 8500 video card) and I don't have any delays in loading screens. That could be because I have 512 Meg of RAM. Those with just 128 Meg may be doing a lot of watching. There have been complaints about the sound, but I don't pay much attention to that aspecte of the game anyway.
I've played the 2002 version of Tiger Woods a few times. In comparison to Links, the 3D look of TW adds quite a bit to the game. Unfortunately, most of the courses for that game look the same to me and you cannot save a game in progress in career mode. It lets you save it, but doesn't carry over the statistics. I lost interest in the game after discovering that. You can save a game in progress in the Links2003 career mode and it carries over the stats. The courses for L2003 have far more variety than the TW ones, although they aren't 3D.
In sum, I don't think this is a must-have upgrade like 2001 was, but it is a solid effort. It also comes with a [...] rebate for previous owners of the game. I received that check less than a month after purchasing the game. Say what you want to about the "Evil Empire," but they do a good job with those rebates.

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