I can’t imagine playing a PC golf game these days after having TW on the Wii. It’s not perfect, but going back to a click-timing game would be miserable, like playing Quake on a console. I’m a control snob.
H.
Silvernail was very good and I think is still doing courses. Steve Holden is back to doing courses and Terry Armstrong is doing great work.
Check out the Golden Bears Den…
Last time I played a golf game it was called “Golf.” And I was playing it on a 4-color CGA monitor that was connected to the 286 IBM computer below. Like, literally connected. They were one.
And the game was amazingly fun. I think I might still have the floppy around somewhere.
World Class Leader Board was one of my most played games 20 years ago. I used a 7-iron for everything. The exception were sand bunkers and whenever I was close enough to the green. In those cases I would use the sand wedge to either get out of the sand or the make a shot for the hole in a huge arc. It was really rewarding to get one of those shots in. I was eleven years old, so don’t make fun of me.
I wanted to post a youtube link, but I can’t yet. The game had awesome speaker sound. Crickets!
In all seriousness, it is worth the investment to purchase a Wii and the latest Tiger Woods game, if you want amazing golf.
With the WiiMotion+ attachment (which I’m pretty sure comes included with a new Wii console), it is the best computer/video golf game ever made. It is ridiculously good, and the swing tracking is almost flawless.
I purchased the PS3 version this year that utilizes the Move motion controller, and it pales in comparison to the Wii’s controls.
So, yeah. If you want golf, that’s the way to go.
$200 for a golf game is a bit steep.
I could get the XBox 360 version, but:
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I really want to also design my own courses. Being able to design and swap courses adds major life to the game.
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The amount of DLC released for TW2012 is absurd, especially given the way it’s integrated into the game. I don’t want to start a career and not be able to play in 1/3rd of the events that the AI golfers compete in simply because I don’t want to fork out $60 more for the DLC. That’s inexcusable.
As another aside, if you have an iDevice, the latest Tiger Woods for iOS is very good as well.
It’s by far the hardest golf game I’ve ever played. I’m constantly struggling to maintain par, let alone below par. Which, for someone who has played millions of video golf games, this is a very good thing. I’ve never played a non-motion controller golf game that required so much skill.
Definitely worth the $5.
Haven’t played a click-control golf game on the PC since PGACG from Sierra changed the game back in 2000. The tru-swing method of swinging a club by sliding the mouse is pretty satisfying.
True, I had forgotton about that method. TW '08 was pretty good with that control.
H.
OMG awesome! Thanks for the heads up!
YES: a course creator… How long has it been since a golf game had a feature-rich course creator? I remember an old PC game–I think it was World Tour Golf–where you basically painted the course, and it was a blast to play with a friend.
One of the old Jack Nicklaus golf games in the early 90s had a pretty solid and simple-to-use course designer. I remember spending a lot of time as a teen making normal courses and then crazy courses to play.
If this new game has an easy-to-use course creator, my god… I can see it sucking up all my free time. Possibly more.
Golf games were one of my earliest mainstays - Jack Nicklaus, Links 386 and beyond. I still have a ton of Links CDs although it has been ages since I tried to play them.
Yeah, the last Nicklaus–JN6 Golden Bear Challenge–was one of the most robust combinations of click-swing golf and course design awesomeness. PCAG2k from Sierra pretty much ran it off when it arrived. Online play worked great, The course designer was terrific, and it had Tru-Swing mouse motion swing tech.
Unfortunately, the company that developed that Tru-Swing tech ended up getting a lot of it trademarked, and EA ended up buying the company and tech for Tiger Woods. EA still owns the patent/trademark on that and appears willing to defend it in court…so that kind of pretty much helped destroy the development of other PC Golf games.
Although not an arcade game where you physically control the golfer with a controller and such, ActionPC Golf is a great golf simulation that produces realistic tournaments and results. A number of seasons and courses available. The courses use real-life satellite maps to draw them, which makes them nice for this type of game.
I was a Links man, myself, starting from the original. It looked amazing when it came out and just got better with every incarnation. I even liked the FMV golfers more than the later competitors’ 3D characters. But the best feature of the series was how they converted EVERY DAMN COURSE they ever made to the next version, so that you just had to put in the course disk and it would recognize that you owned it and either unlock a new version or convert the old course. I ended up with probably 30 or 40 courses.
What was the last LINKS? 2004? I think I played that for over 3 years on my Xbox.
I played Links on the PC for ages. Such a great game.
I guess I was OK with Links, but it always felt pretty shallow to me.
Sierra’s Golf game in '99 or 2000 or whenever was eye opening. If you played that, you could never go back to Links.