Links 2001 Hands-On

Each year, several PC golf titles make their way to store shelves with a host of improvements and added features designed to make cyber-golf more enjoyable and realistic.

For this year's edition of Links for the PC (Links 2001) Microsoft has developed an entirely new graphics engine along with a more accurate ball-flight physics model and swing-control mechanism. Also thrown in for good measure is the actual course designing utility that the game's developers used to create the seven golf courses in the game.

Finally, wannabe Pete Dyes and Jack Nicklauses can develop and design their own virtual courses, complete with full scenery, accurate fairways, and a library of shrubs, bushes, and sand bunkers. Players can even import their own custom trees to fully replicate their favorite home course.

In addition to the long-overdue course designer, Links 2001's other major improvement is its gorgeous graphics-rendering engine. New in-game terrain includes cliffs, arches, bunker overhangs, and a tremendous amount of viewable area. Particularly impressive is the inclusion of anti-aliased trees and panoramas, which are rendered at high resolutions and color depths. The effect is impressive, mimicking the sharp visuals of an actual PGA Tour golf event being broadcast on television.

For multiplayer thrills Links 2001 offers the VGA Tour, in which golfers compete in real-time events via the Internet. Real cash prizes await players who succeed in the events, including a chance to win up to a maximum of $100,000.

Arnold Palmer still endorses the Links series and is therefore fully animated in Links 2001, along with two other yet unnamed PGA professionals who will be offered for player or CPU control.

From the demonstration we witnessed at E3, Links 2001 is poised to challenge the best golfing simulations available when it debuts later this year.