From: pdc@lunch.wpd.sgi.com (Paul Close)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: Links 386 Pro questions and observations
Date: 7 Sep 92 00:36:16 GMT
Reply-To: pdc@sgi.com (Paul Close)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Originator: pdc@lunch.wpd.sgi.com

This weekend I bought Links 386 Pro.  I've never played a computer golf game
before, and my golf skill is in the "worm burner" category :-)

First the question: why don't I have any player or course stats?  I've
played a number of games, both with recorded players (Thanks Gary "not
the dead one" Cooper :-), Brian Zucker and Kevin Kramer!) and solo games.
Each time I get the game summary, but in the stats menu, there are no
players selected, and the course summaries are all zero.  I'll phone Access
on tuesday I guess, but I'd be interested in hearing if others have this
problem too.  I've got the 1.05 version.

What does it mean when the "swing" circle is half green?  They don't mention
this in the manual.

What do the little plusses around the outside of the "swing" circle mean?

A few observations:  I was disappointed with the view scheme once I realized
there are only a handful of fixed window arrangements.  I got the impression
it was a lot more flexible than it is ("over 345 different combinations").
Even worse, to rearrange the windows, you need to go through about four
menus.  It would have been a good idea to preassign views to function keys,
for example, but they don't.

I must say, the colors and high resolution are *very* nice, worth buying the
game for, IMHO.  Ironically, the 640x400 resolution just makes you wish they
had done even more!  800x600 for example....  (The 1.05 version will run in
800x600 or higher modes, but the active area is still 640x400 pixels).

Now I just have to wait for new courses, and hope I can afford them!  Can
someone who bought the Bountiful Golf Club course post a review?  I guess
for $9.95 I should just buy it, but I'm still recovering from the $43 price
tag of Links 386, which I think is a trifle steep.  Not that other games
aren't that expensive too, or it's not a quality game or anything.  I just
don't like paying over $40 for a game.

Nits:
	- too bad you can't change viewing schemes easier.
	- the top view should have more detail.
	- you should be able to set your aiming pin using *any* of the
	  views, not just the main view.
	- it would be nice to have programmable course views, not just from
	  the golfer and the pin.
	- it would be nice to have an option to speed play with recorded
	  players.  I'm always hitting the mouse button to speed things up,
	  and sometimes I mess up my own shot (mulligan time!)
	- you can't save a game in progress with recorded players (why not?!?)
	- it's too easy to hit out of the sand or the rough, I'm guessing.
	  I've made birdies after shooting from the rough to the sand to the
	  green (well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

Bonus: it runs under OS/2!  On my eight meg machine, it runs just fine, even
with the extra overhead of OS/2.  In fact, it's a little faster, which makes
shots harder!  The timing is a lot more precise....  It crashes occasionally
under OS/2, and alt-ctl-s (screen shot) also crashes (in each case, it only
crashes itself, not OS/2).  So I boot DOS....

Summary: thumbs up!

P.S. Where the heck is Harbour Town????
-- 
Paul Close	     pdc@sgi.com	   ...!{ames, decwrl, uunet}!sgi!pdc

			No fate but what we make