Links 2002 Championship Edition

Rating:
Summary: Valid training sim for world's toughest game
Review: Being disabled, I thought golf was out of the question, especially since I hadn't tried the game at all while younger and healthier. I received this software as a Christmas gift three years ago, and learned the fascination of golf. After a month of messing around with one digit doing all the work, a putting green and a bag of balls came on my 55th birthday.

A few weeks later, with persuasion from my wife and doctor, I bought a used seven iron and began experimenting at a driving range to see if swinging a club was possible for me. Having trained for flying on a simulator, it was natural for me to turn to Links LS to see if it would be feasible for someone with my limits to play on a real course. For a year, I would update the pseudo-Gary in Links LS with my latest swing capabilities to see if getting around a real course was possible yet.

By my 56th birthday, Links LS and that seven iron had taught me to be as bad a duffer as most -- and even more of an enthusiast. I began playing on real courses.

Speaking as a past expert in simulation systems, this program is an amazing value at... you should run like a thief in the night. The interaction of ball and club is modeled with very accurate physics. You can improve your short game on real courses with the practice mode in this software. And see realistic improvements from week to week.

And the in-game version of myself exhibits the same swing characteristics as I have when my disability does not interject itself with an unexpected fall or stumble. This lets me see how I could play an entire eighteen holes if my body would hold up, as well as letting me practice tactics that minimize the effect of my limits.

If you're honest enough to set up a player character with your own swing distance and shape, you'll simultaneously learn more about practical course management with your current set of skills -- and also see how much better you could do with a decent straight shot in your golf bag. Create a Me-right-now and a Me-Wannabe. The difference in scoring when you play both will make you drool to get better.

Aside from all that practical stuff, it's just downright fun to watch a PGA tournament on television and then play a round on the same course in my computer.

Highly recommended piece of software. And I can't imagine anyone complaining about paying ...for the newest version with four new courses when owners of the previous version get a ...rebate that reduces that ...

(P.S. After three years, I'm a member of a golf club, thoroughly hooked, and renowned for being "the guy with the canes who has a short game like a pro" -- even if I can't break 100 most days with my limitations in the full swing. I thank Links LS for that short game, although I would never admit it in the clubhouse.)

Rating:
Summary: Game Doesn't Work
Review: I bought this game in hopes of having something fun to do on my computer as I am always working. The problem is that it won't work. It worked once. I called up tech and got a very friendly tech. He said I needed the latest update of the video card driver and also to completely uninstall the program and reinstall it. I did both and the game worked once, but never again. I have installed and reinstalled it a few times, but no go. I have a brand new Gateway notebook with Windows 200 Pro. You would think that a Microsoft program would work with Windows. Oh well.

Rating:
Summary: Game Doesn't Work
Review: I bought this game in hopes of having something fun to do on my computer as I am always working. The problem is that it won't work. It worked once. I called up tech and got a very friendly tech. He said I needed the latest update of the video card driver and also to completely uninstall the program and reinstall it. I did both and the game worked once, but never again. I have installed and reinstalled it a few times, but no go. I have a brand new Gateway notebook with Windows 200 Pro. You would think that a Microsoft program would work with Windows. Oh well.

Rating:
Summary: why..why..why....
Review: I have purchased Links and its courses since the inception. Now to get the four new courses, I must buy the whole package again.
Why....I ask, I already have EVERYTHING else, all I want is the new courses. The program is truly wonderful, the marketing is another story......(...)

Rating:
Summary: Good Golf, Great Graphics
Review: No doubt about it, Links is the best golf game out there. Physics are good, graphics are great. The course designer is good, could use some better documentation. The only gripe I have with the game is the fact that the wav. files from LS 2000 cannot be included. I really miss the British guy and his acerbic comments. That's the next thing Microsoft needs to do. I like being able to enjoy all the old LS courses that I have, though they don't play quite as well as the courses that came with the game. Other than the wav. file gripe, everything is great. A really fun game to play

Rating:
Summary: Once you go Mac...
Review: Sorry, but I just HAD to write a review for this game. Well, actually, it's only partially about this game. My review: AWESOME! But there is an (*) that goes along with it.

*Awesome on a Mac

I admit, I didn't purchase the game from this site because I couldn't. They don't carry it for Mac. But when I read, with much delight, one of the reviews spouting off about 90% of the bad stuff said about Microsoft is slander, 9% is sour grapes from less talented people (whatever), leaving supposedly only 1% actually true, I had to respond with my OWN Mac-biased review. Sounds like this guy has some deep issues of over-justification. I've been a Mac fan my life, true. But I've had to work on a Microsoft-based computer at my job (call it a sentence). Played games on both. And, anyone who cannot see the superiority of the Mac are either fooling themselves, or just a fool. I have Virtual PC on my old Mac and the games run and look better on it, than on the Microsoft system itself! Now, I just got a new 17" iMac and I almost cried from the beauty of the landscaping on my monitor when I played this game. And, I must say, the play was seemless.
All in all, I would totally recommend this game for anyone using a Mac. As for Windows users, are you sure it's the game with the problems?

Rating:
Summary: Once you go Mac...
Review: Sorry, but I just HAD to write a review for this game. Well, actually, it's only partially about this game. My review: AWESOME! But there is an (*) that goes along with it.

*Awesome on a Mac

I admit, I didn't purchase the game from this site because I couldn't. They don't carry it for Mac. But when I read, with much delight, one of the reviews spouting off about 90% of the bad stuff said about Microsoft is slander, 9% is sour grapes from less talented people (whatever), leaving supposedly only 1% actually true, I had to respond with my OWN Mac-biased review. Sounds like this guy has some deep issues of over-justification. I've been a Mac fan my life, true. But I've had to work on a Microsoft-based computer at my job (call it a sentence). Played games on both. And, anyone who cannot see the superiority of the Mac are either fooling themselves, or just a fool. I have Virtual PC on my old Mac and the games run and look better on it, than on the Microsoft system itself! Now, I just got a new 17" iMac and I almost cried from the beauty of the landscaping on my monitor when I played this game. And, I must say, the play was seemless.
All in all, I would totally recommend this game for anyone using a Mac. As for Windows users, are you sure it's the game with the problems?

Rating:
Summary: Completely unusable to my great frustration
Review: The day I ordered this upgrade I posted a review of Links LS that was sincere and enthusiastic. Sadly, I have to revise that review after installing this version. It will not work, and it has made the earlier version unworkable as well. I have no working version of Microsoft Links LS 2001 suddenly.

And I have a very normal system configuration. Powerful, but normal. Everything inside is Intel and the operating system is Microsoft as well as most of the software.

Ninety percent of what is written about Microsoft is egregious slander. Another nine percent is accurate, but merely sour grapes from less talented people. This is one of those cases in the last one percent. Some paranoid management decision has ruined a great product.

Without notice, copy protection of the most annoying old-fashioned variety has been added -- and does not work. Moreover, the installation process retroactively applies the tactic to earlier versions. Install this version and you're rolling the dice on whether you'll have any working version at all.

It demands the program disk when you launch. Workable, if insulting, except it promptly crashes while attempting to "validate the media." And so does the old version after you've attempted to install this "upgrade."

After three hours last night and another four today, this is what I've learned:

a. The new version installs a "Safedisk feature" (a third-party copy protection scheme) that is not compatible with some CD drives. I have two, from two different manufacturers, and it is compatible with neither.

b. The new version cannot be run if Safedisk is not compatible with your CD drive. The Microsoft Knowledge Base uses the coy phrase: "No known solution." So I uninstalled the new version.

c. Reinstalling the old version I learned that it now applies the same -- inoperable -- "feature." It wants the program disk in the drive and then crashes when you do so. (Mind you, both of these are fully paid versions. I don't steal anything, let alone anything as trivial as software.)

d. After various arcane magic known to us system geeks, I have done the obvious and many things not so obvious without success. I have restored the system registry to its pre-install condition; manually removed the files a well-behaved program installs that might be left behind by the "un-install" function; and conducted other tests and experiments not worth detailing. Somewhere inside Microsoft a paranoid programmer has intentionally gone around all the programming guidelines for Windows to "hide" this new feature where it will not be removed by normal procedures.

Buy this program and you run a realistic chance of disabling earlier versions as well as wasting the money you spend on this one.

I haven't decided how much I care about this. ... Perhaps I'll explore what was done enough to get my old version running and maybe I won't. Certainly I won't install a third CD drive or take any of the Draconian measures suggested in the Microsoft Knowledge Base in order to run a program with minor fixes from the previous version.