Links (game series)

Left

developer	Access software
Publisher	US Gold , Eidos Interactive , Microsoft
First title	Left: The Challenge of Golf (1990)
Last title	Links 2004 (2003)
Platform (s)	PC ( DOS , Windows ), Amiga , Mac OS , Sega Mega-CD , Xbox
Genre (s)	Sports simulation (golf simulation)

Links is a set of computer Golf - simulation , which as of 1990 by the then company Access software has been developed for the PC. The first games were particularly convincing due to their graphics with a degree of realism that was previously unknown.

graphic

The graphics support SVGA , but with very old graphics cards it may take a relatively long time to build up the screen because each tree is loaded individually. All courses are original blueprints of real golf courses.

The game's designers were Vance Cook, Kevin Homer, and Roger Carver.

Screen resolutions

Left: 320 × 200
Left 386 Pro: 640 × 400 pixels or 640 × 480 (256 colors)
Left LS: 800 × 600 (also higher, but with frame)

Updates Links 2003 / Vers. 1.07 and Windows 7/8/10

It is strongly recommended to use the Links 2003 version together with the current update 1.07 (see link) in order to be able to use new and updated places. All older seats are also compatible.

Another update enables the use of Links 2003 from Windows 7 (see link).

control

The tee shot is controlled with the mouse. With the first mouse click, the strength of the discount is determined. The second click of the mouse determines the accuracy of the target. Fast reactions are required.

Another variant is to operate the mouse by moving it to simulate the tee shot. This requires significantly more practice to realize a precise tee shot.

Golf courses / courses

The player had to purchase additional golf courses using additional disks. At that time they cost 60 DM each. The course disks (3½ ") also work with the game Microsoft Golf for Windows (based on links), but with a lower resolution.

With Links LS all courses are saved on the CD. However, the player must insert the original disk. However, by simply editing a file, all courses can be activated without diskettes.

The publication of the APCD (Arnold Palmer Course Designer) with Links 2001 made it possible to create your own courses. The supplied tool corresponded to the Microsoft developer tool.

To this day, there are many golf courses (real and fictional), animations and equipment for golfers and much more available for download on the Internet.

predecessor

Leaderboard Golf (for the C64 , 1986 by Access Software)

Versions

Left: The Challenge of Golf
- 1991, PC DOS
- 1992, Amiga
- 1994, Sega Mega CD
Links 386 Pro
- 1992, DOS
Left LS
- 1998–2002, Windows CD-ROM distributed by Eidos Interactive
Left LS 2001
- 2001, Windows
Left 2003
- 2002, Windows XP, Windows Vista / 7/8 (with updates, see link)
Left 2004
- 2003, Xbox

Links 2007 was planned for September 2006 for the Xbox 360 . But Take-Two decided to discontinue the project shortly after Microsoft bought all rights to links.

At the end of 1995 a simulation by the company Peacock appeared with a real golf club (made of plastic) that contained a sensor and served as an input device instead of a mouse. The racket was extendable up to 65 cm and cost 349 DM.

Individual course disks / CD

Banff Springs (1992) - Banff National Park / Alberta
Barton Creek (1991) - Austin / Texas
Bay Hill Club & Lodge (1991) - Orlando / Florida
Bighorn Mountains (1994) - Palm Desert / California (*)
Bountiful Golf Course (1991) - Bountiful City near Salt Lake City / Utah
Castle Pines (1994) - Castle Rock / Colorado
Cog Hill 5 - Dubsdread (1996) - Lemont near Chicago / Illinois (*)
Congressional (1997) - Washington / Washington DC
Devils Island (1995) - fictional: Bermuda Islands
Firestone Country Club (1991) - Akron / Ohio (*)
Harbor Town (1991) - Hilton Head Island / South Carolina
Hyatt Dorado Beach Resort (1991) - San Juan / Puerto Rico
Innisbrook Copperhead South (1993) - Tampa / Florida
Mauna Kea (Island of Hawaii, 1992) - Kamuela / Hawaii
Pelican Hill (1996) - Newport Beach near Los Angeles / California
Pebble Beach (1993) - Monterrey Peninsula / California (**)
Pinehurst Country Club 2 (1991) - Charlotte / North Carolina (*)
Pinehurst Country Club 8 (1999) - Charlotte / North Carolina (*)
Prairie Dunes (1995) - Hutchinson / Kansas
Riviera (1995) - Los Angeles-Pacific Palisades / California
The Belfry (1993) - Birmingham / Warwickshire
Torrey Pines (1991) - La Jolla / California
Troon North (1991) - Scottsdale / Arizona
Oakland Hills Country Club (1996) - Bloomfield Hills / Michigan (*)
Sea Island (1997) - St. Simons Island / Georgia
Phoenix (1999) - Miyazaki / Japan
Valderrama (1997) - Sotogrande / Andalusia
Valhalla (1997) - Louisville, Kentucky

For courses marked with (*), at least one other course is available in the same resort on the Internet (e.g. Firestone North / Firestone South or Bighorn Canyons / Bighorn Mountains).

(**) There is a historical design for the Pebble Beach course on the Internet based on records from 1930.

Most of these courses are now available with a higher resolution and an updated design on the Internet (see link). Some of these places are updated regularly. The version can usually be recognized by the attached year numbers or additions such as "HD", e.g. B. "Saint Andrews Old Course HD". The size of the updated places are usually a multiple of the original versions of Access / Microsoft (possibly over 200 MB). The resolution of the revised places is much greater, u. a. Blades of grass and sand bunkers together with graduated bunker boundaries instead of green or gray textures.

These revised places can usually only be used with Links 2003 and update version 1.07 (see link).

Golf collections within various links versions and additional packages

After 1997 there were no more individual golf courses to buy. Instead, there were several packages from 2000 that contained several older courses with higher resolution and several newly digitized golf courses in each package.

- In 1997 4 links collections were published, in each of which five older digitized courses were updated and published with higher resolution, but did not contain any new courses.

- In the following years, 4 further supplementary packages were released, which contained revised older courses and also additional courses:

Left LS 2000 (10 Course Pack): 9 revised older courses with higher resolution and additional
- Three Canyons (2000) - fictional: San Diego / California

Expansion Pack:
- Thanksgiving Point - Lehi, Utah

Expansions Pack 2:
- Stone Canyon Club - Tucson / Arizona,
- Trent Jones Golf Club - Los Angeles / California
- Ayrshire Dunes - Boston, Massachusetts

Championship Edition:
- The Judge - Los Angeles / California
- Oakmont - Oakmont, Pennsylvania
- Royal Melbourne - Melbourne / New South Wales

- There were more digitized golf courses in the following versions of the LINKS simulation:

Left 1997:
- Latrobe - Latrobe near Pittsburgh / Pennsylvania (2 versions for summer and autumn)
- Kapalua Village, Kapalua Plantation - Lahaina on Maui / Hawaii

Links 1998:
- Kapalua Bay - Lahaina on Maui / Hawaii

Left 1999:
- Entrada - St. George / Utah,
- St. Andrews Old Course - Sankt Andrews / Scotland

Left 2000:
- Hapuna - Kamuela / Hawaii
- Covered Bridge - Sellersburg / Indiana
- St. Andrews New Couse, St. Andrews Jubilee Course - Saint Andrews / Scotland

Left 2001:
- Aviara - Carlsbad / California
- Chateau Whistler - Vancouver / British Columbia
- Prince Course (Princeville) - Kauai / Hawaii
- Westfields - Virginia Beach / Virginia
- Mesa Roja - fictional: Arizona

Left 2003:
- Cabo del Sol - La Paz-Baja California Sur / Mexico
- Gleneagles - Perth / Scotland
- Otsego - Gaylord / Michigan
- Cambrian Ridge - Mobile, Alabama
- Kauri Cliffs - Auckland / New Zealand
- Skeleton Coast - fictitious: not specifically localized in Africa

There are currently over 1800 courses available for download on the Internet, including many well-known real-world courses that are regularly updated, such as:

UNITED STATES:
- Augusta National - Augusta / Georgia
- Spyglass Hill - Peninsula Mornington / California,
- Santa Barbara Resort (3 places) - Santa Barbara / California
- Doral Resort (2 places) - Miami / Florida
- Woodland CC / TPC (2 places) - Houston / Texas
- Sawgrass TPC - Ponte Vedra / Florida
- Scottsdale TPC - Scottsdale / Arizona
- La Quinta - Jefferson / California
- Key Biscayne - Miami / Florida
- Brown Deer - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Ayrshine Dunes - Boston / Massachusetts
- Capitol Hill - Prattville, Alabama
- Crystal Pines - Worland / Wyoming
- Desert Canyon / Washington
- Medinah - Merion / Illinois
- Oklahoma - Fort Sill / Oklahoma
- Stone Canyon - Tucson, Arizona
- Stonebriar - Ponte Vedra / Florida

Canada:
- Stonebridge - Ottawa / Ontario
- Northern Dunes - Hepworth near Owen Sound / Ontario

Hawaii:
- Pacific Breaks - Kaumakani on the island of Kauai

Scotland:
- Glenmuir - Edinburgh
- Muirfield Village - Falkirk
- St. Andrews Backward - Saint Andrews
- Gooseneck Bay - Inverness
- Centenary - Perth

Ireland:
- Druids Glenn - Dublin
- Roganstown - Dublin
- Royal County Kilderry - Dingle

England:
- Royal Lytham and Saint Annes - Manchester
- Tudor Park - Maidstone / Kent

Germany:
- Eichenried - Bavaria (near Munich)
- Gut Kaden (3 combined 18-lane courses: 2 times 9 lanes each from 3 courses) - Alveslohe near Hamburg / Schleswig-Holstein
- Gut Lärchenhof - near Cologne / North Rhine-Westphalia
- Lucia van Rheden - Hameln / Lower Saxony

Austria: Enzesfeld - near Vienna / Lower Austria

United Arab Emirates: Dubai Emirates

Sweden: Leafield near Gothenburg

Spain: Las Brisas - Granada / Andalusia

Furthermore, many extraordinary fictional scenarios can be found on the Internet, including a .:

Devils Island 2008 (an Indian scenery, the flagsticks depicted as torture stakes and a pirate ship as a backdrop)
Rivendell (based on the legendary role-playing game series "Ultima" with fantasy castle as a backdrop)
Piazza Metallica (a recultivated industrial landscape in the Ruhr area - corresponding to the Piazza Metallica in Duisburg-Meiderich)
Netherlands: Kanaal New Course (a fictional Dutch landscape with windmills and numerous streams)
Shadowlands - a typical links course designed in the Scottish style
Brydestone - a Scottish style parkland course with numerous streams and great elevation changes
Avalon Coast - another Scottish design golf course
Gooseneck Bay - on a cliff in the Scottish style with difficult obstacles and high rough
a crater landscape on the moon under a glass dome ("Craters of the Moon"), cf. http://linkscorner.org/courses/index.php

These places are also updated often and sometimes regularly. The version can be recognized by the year, e.g. B. "Rivendell 2014".

The Links 2003 version 1.07 is also usually required for these places (see link).

Projects

The company "perfect golf" announces a new golf simulation "Perfect Golf" for January 2015.

It should contain an improved graphics engine. The alpha version already contained animations (moving leaves and grass in the wind, waterfalls, flowing water), 3D effects (including glare effects in the backlight), weather-related effects (including fog, moving clouds) and nighttime conditions with floodlights.

The game is equipped with a golf course editor and already includes about 40 golf courses. For licensing reasons, golf courses were not converted from the links format.

The development reached the stage of an alpha version in 2012 and it can already be seen here that the hardware requirements are very high (recommendation: PC at least 4 GB RAM and at least 512 MB graphics card memory with DirectX 9). In 2013 you could download a test version and play a golf course completely.

The new Golf version is not expected to be freely available in Germany. The game can only be downloaded from a server for players from the USA. Payment can be made in Germany by opening an online bank account in Luxembourg and transferring the amount to this account in advance.