One, two, three, FOUR!!! Put on your golf shoes and
round up your clubs, it’s time for some Xbox Live golf. Links was the best selling
golf game for the PC and has been built from the ground up to take advantage of
the Xbox console, the Xbox Live service, and the new XSN Sports online features.
Single player, play by play multiplayer via one Xbox, system link, and Xbox Live
gaming are sure to keep a golf fan going with the first ever online enabled golfer.
Golf on luxurious and challenging golf courses throughout the world with your
friends, or fellow gamers from around the world.

Gameplay
As with all good games Links 2004 begins with a very brief tutorial, make sure
you play through it to get your first $40,000 to buy skill points with, you’ll
end up needing them down the course a bit. The tutorial will teach you the basics
of swinging the club, putting, reading the on screen indicators and such, but
we’ll touch more on that in the control section. The major section of the game
is debatable; it may be the Career mode, and it may be Xbox Live. Whichever
YOU think is the biggest part of the game, you’ll still need to play
solo to build up those skill points, so focus on career first.

Career play begins with 9 hole tournaments in Rookie Tour and works all the
way up to 72 hole battles for the Legend Tour crown, all in all there are five
tours and over thirty tournaments to be had. Within career mode you will tee
off on some of the most luxurious courses around the world. Some of the famous
courses include Greywolf (Alberta, Canada), New South Wales (Australia), Loch
Lomond (U.K.), Superstition Mountain (Arizona), and many more. Career mode also
has a sub-section of Skill Events where you can compete against a variety of
challenges for even more bonus cash, all said and done you can rack up to $47,000,000.00.

There is also a Challenge Mode that is outside of the Career section, in this
section completing the courses and challenges will unlock up to four new courses
and a slew of golf ball skins. Some of the challenges include hitting from the
rough, closest to pin competitions, and stroke limited shots.

Not up for all the pressure? Take part in a single round of golf where you
set the option for number of holes, wind speed, weather, pin location and difficulty
and much more. In addition, playing a solo game will also rack you in some dough
to help boost those skill points.

Xbox Live
While
Links 2004 features an extensive single player lineup, after you have built
up your golfer’s stats you will no doubt want to test out your skills against
some real live competition. Fortunately for us, Links has all of the multiplayer
modes down, nice and solid, including 1-4 players on a single Xbox, 2-4 via
System Link, Xbox Live game play, as well as XSN tournament support. All of
the modes are very solid and you will not see any wacky quirks throughout the
game, on any mode. For the sake of being redundant, we will skip right over
to the Xbox Live portion.

When I first logged on to Xbox Live I wondered; How long would it take to play
18 holes with 5 other golfers swinging the clubs on the ‘ol green course? The
answer: Much quicker than you think, all in all about 45 minutes using the ’stroke
FAST’ play method. Stroke fast play is a welcomed addition in multiplayer that
allows all of the contestants to tee off at the same time, instead of watching
each other play, you simply see the updates on the scorecards, and occasionally
hear an announcer comment on the stroke of luck (no pun intended) a fellow player
has had.

New to the golf sport and the Xbox in general is the XSN network, where gamers
can set up groups or clans and have tournaments amongst each other. The beauty
of the system is that once a tournament is set, a deadline is scheduled, and
all player need to complete the required course before the deadline ends. Interesting
concept as it eliminates the need to schedule a time for a tournament when everyone
is available.

Control
The controls in Links are intricate and sensitive enough for the skilled pro,
yet simple enough for anyone to jump in and play with a 15 minute learning curve,
give or take a few. Put simply, the D-Pad controls a marker on the field that
serves as an aiming point, with wind speed taken into consideration, placement
of the target will affect where your ball actually lands. The left thumb stick
actually swings the club, with a back-then-forward motion to get the swing done.
On the beginning levels there will be on screen indicators suggesting where
to swing; ex: full swing, half swing, etc. In the later levels it will be done
by pure skill, experience, and quite often luck.

During each shot, unless you have disabled it, a club will be auto-selected
for use, however you can cycle through your available clubs by pressing the
right/left triggers, based on wind and terrain a 3 Iron may be better suited
than the 2 Iron which has been selected for you. Before you take a shot you
can also use the B button in conjunction with the left thumb stick to choose
a shot type (straight, putt, blast, flop, chip, etc.) and use the right thumb
stick to put a spin on the ball. There are so many things you can do before
swinging the club it may sound confusing, but in game it’s pretty basic once
you’ve done it a few times.

Graphics

The graphics are done very well, the players are animated nicely, and the environments
look true to life and gorgeous. The cut corners a bit when it comes to the audience
and onlookers; while they do react to the players shots, the animation is almost
two dimensional and puts an unfinished feel to it every time I see it, but it’s
something that can be overlooked in spite of all of the great textures and environmental
effects. For those gamers having a system that follows suit, the game also supports
480p.

Audio
The audio in Links is done well, but the announcers will become annoying very
soon as they do not have an extensive array of things to say it seems, even
though they did recognize to call me by my first name, Jason. The crack of the
ball as you tee off, the sound of it rushing through the air, the unique sound
it makes as it hits the pin on those rare occasions, it’s all done very convincingly.
All this adds a completed feel to the game, and continues the realistic nature
of the title.

Replay Value
With XSN Sports, Xbox Live, multiplayer, and a solid single player Career mode,
Links 2004 will keep you on the green well past the purchase price. Quite honestly,
I had my doubts, but I was impressed by the fun factor that this golf game has,
more fun than the over the top golfers out there, and more realistic as well.
I’m hooked.

Overall Score
Overall Score: 8.8/10 [Not an Average]

Related Links

Feel free to post a comment or discuss this review in our Forums.

Filed under: Reviews

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!