Links 2001 Preview

In recent years, the PC golf world has undergone a major shake-up. Access Software's once-unrivaled Links series cruised along with only minor changes from year to year, while Activision's Jack Nicklaus series quickly caught up with and then surpassed the venerable classic. Even more recently, Sierra's PGA Championship Golf 2000 roared past both titles to claim the top spot in the category. So now, under the banner of Microsoft, Links 2001 is set to challenge these upstart golf sims and reclaim the lead for the venerable series. Does this year's version of the game have the features and the gameplay to surpass its competitors? Based on our early look at Links 2001, the answer is a qualified yes.

Links 2001 includes a number of impressive new features, including a sophisticated course design tool, an all-new rendering engine, customizable club distances, and a pair of new golf pros (Sergio Garcia and Annika Sorenstam) to accompany the ever-present Arnold Palmer. The game has a number of performance and stability problems, but those can, hopefully, be chalked up to the current prerelease state of the code. Ultimately, the success of Links 2001 will depend on the loyalty of existing Links fans and Microsoft's ability to smooth out the beta's current poor performance.

The most notable new feature in Links 2001 is the new graphics-rendering engine. Will it turn many heads away from the 3D graphics of PGA Championship Golf 2000? Not likely. Though the new visuals look good, they still employ the same video-captured golfer overlay used by previous Links titles. The overall effect - despite some glorious new vistas and incredibly detailed settings - is a pasted-together look and feel that comes up short against the fully 3D games out there.

Still, if you liked the look of Links 2000, you'll most likely appreciate the look of Links 2001 as well. Overall, this version of the game looks much better than previous versions, thanks to a host of new graphics capabilities. For example, the new terrain types you'll encounter in this game include bunker overhangs, cliffs, and massive rock archways. All of the scenery (trees and the like) are now anti-aliased so that they blend in a bit smoother with the background. The anti-aliasing also helps with the golfer animations, although, as noted previously, the pasted-in effect is still an issue with Links 2001. Less notable features include ambient life such as birds and butterflies that seem to materialize out of thin air over the course. As luck would have it, the bird animation in the beta we tested was placeholder art, so the animation resembled a bunch of little flapping "v" birds, as if drawn by a grade-schooler.

Otherwise, the new graphics engine in Links 2001 is a step forward for the series. As stated above, PGA Championship 2000 still has an edge in the graphics department, but Links 2001 can once again make a solid showing for itself.

Course Designer

Not to be outshone by the graphic enhancements, the new Arnold Palmer Course Designer Architect is a complex and powerful course design tool that lets users create and edit their own custom courses. According to Microsoft, this is the same tool that the game's developer used to craft the courses included with the game. That's not difficult to believe, since the Designer Architect (which seems a bit redundant, now that we think of it) is about as intimidating and complicated an editing tool as we've encountered lately.

There's no denying the tool's power, though. With it, you can craft an entire course from scratch - right down to the buildings visible on the course, the layout of the sand traps, and the density of the trees and other foliage surrounding each hole. The only troubling aspect of the Designer Architect is the learning curve. Though it is clearly being touted as a serious editing tool and "more than a toy for entry-level builders" (direct quote from Microsoft PR material), the editing suite could benefit greatly from a full-fledged tutorial.

Aside from the two big-ticket enhancements in Links 2001, the game offers a number of other notable improvements. For starters, you can now edit the maximum distance afforded to every club in your bag. Each club has a valid range of values for distance, so you can set the distance for your particular club to any figure within that range. For example, the 1-iron can hit a ball anywhere from 115 to 230 yards.

During gameplay, you will benefit from the game's new green analyzer, which basically overlays a color-coded grid on the green surface. This feature can really help you get a feel for the best way to approach each putt. The shot-aim indicator, which superimposes a moveable red-and-white-striped pin on the screen as you choose a direction to hit your next shot, can also help. At the base of the pin, an arrow indicates the angle and intensity of the green's slope.

Final Thoughts

Other features include a slew of new golfer animations. Though the video overlay method leaves a bit to be desired as far as total immersion is concerned, the animations are generally quite good. They also are fluid, though you will occasionally notice the hard drive spinning up to load a new pre-swing waggle or missed-putt tantrum. While it's probably too much to ask, the game also seems to be lacking Sergio Garcia's trademark run down the fairway after particularly good shots. Maybe in the final version.

The game will ship with six courses, including the St. Andrews Old Course. Aviara, Chateau Whistler (which did not work at all during our time with the beta), The Prince Course, Westfield, and the fanciful Mesa Roja round out the list.

While Links 2001 is still in beta stage, it does suffer from a few troubling issues. The analog swing feature, for example, seems to be completely broken at this point. Every time we tried using this method - where a swing is completed by moving the mouse back and forth in a sideways motion - Links 2001 crashed out to the Windows desktop.

Also, the performance of the game is a serious problem at this point in the development. In fact, serious tuning is required to get Links 2001 to anything resembling acceptable performance. Even on a machine equipped well beyond the game's minimum requirements, Links 2001 limps along from hole to hole and even from shot to shot. Lengthy pauses mark the transitions between each and every shot you take. Most of this time is spent waiting for your view of the course to re-render. Hopefully, these delays can be shortened or eliminated, as the game is simply too slow to enjoy at this time. The course designer is even slower than the game, incidentally, and that may prove even more intimidating to first-time course architects than the utility's steep learning curve.

With a vague release date set for the fall of this year, Microsoft has plenty of time to fine-tune the game and whip Links 2001 into better shape. Whether the final product recaptures the hearts and minds of golf sim fans may depend on Microsoft's ability to do just that.