Links: The Challenge of Golf

Amiga HAM mode

This is one of the few Amiga games that uses HAM mode graphics. HAM mode allowed the Amiga to use the 4.096 colors from its color palette, but it also came with many limitations, so it was mostly used to show digitised pictures or pre-rendered 3D graphics.

Covermount release

A complete version of Links: The Challenge of Golf is available on Classic Games Collection CD featured with the July 2000 issue of PC Gamer Magazine.

Development

According to the back of the manual, here's what it takes to design a Links course:

Play the course. Take over 500 aerial and landscape photos. Videotape the entire course. Obtain topographical and grading drawings. Gather information about prevailing winds and weather. Convert topographic maps into terrain data. Locate greens, tee boxes, bunkers, hazards, etc. Digitize actual vegetation found on the course and place appropriately along with other objects. Use a specially designed course editor to smooth and refine original terrain data. Digitize and install panorama. Install tee markers, ball washers, benches, clubhouse, etc. Playtest and refine for accurate course representation.

This process takes two men months to complete and generates approximately 700,000 bytes of course data--10 times more than other golf games!

Ducks

For no apparent reason, when pressing 'Q', the game will play a sound of a quacking duck and on rare occasions it will play the quack automatically after a particularly bad shot.

Big Bertha

The famous club and ball image featured in the cover of the game box, also used in Links 386 Pro and other releases (sometimes inside the game instead of the cover) is the classic Big Bertha driver from Callaway, part of its signature Big Bertha club series. Fading with the black background, barely anything from the club can be seen except reflections and the golden face with strips. The head of Big Bertha with the ball has been associated with all the early releases of the Links series, with many boxes (e.g. The Links 386 Pro box featuring the image beveled) giving proper credit displaying the sentences: The image of "Big Bertha" on the front is used with permission of Callaway Golf. "Big Bertha" is a registered trademark of Callaway Golf".

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • November 1991 (Issue #88) – Action Game of the Year
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #5 Most Innovative Computer Game
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #36 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
• Power Play
  • Issue 02/1992 – Best Sports Game in 1991

Information also contributed by rstevenson and Servo.