Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition

• Platform: IBM PC Compatible
• Release Date: July 01, 1999
• Genre: Sports
• Style: Golf
• Similar Games: Tiger Woods 99 PGA Tour Golf (IBM PC Compatible), Jack Nicklaus 6: Golden Bear Challenge (IBM PC Compatible), PGA Championship Golf 1999 (IBM PC Compatible), Pro 18: World Tour Golf (IBM PC Compatible), Links LS 1999 (IBM PC Compatible)

Game Description

In Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition, three new courses have been added to those shipped with the previous year's edition. A total of 117 holes is now offered with six full 18-hole courses and one nine-hole layout. Free Internet service is provided at the Internet Gaming Zone www.zone.com for cyber-golf fans who'd rather compete against human competition than computer controlled opponents. LAN and modem multi-player options are available as well.

Game courses include the Donald Ross Memorial (Harbor Springs, Michigan), the Greg Norman designed Medalist in Hobe Sound, Florida and two courses from Casa de Campo, The Links and Teeth of the Dog. Rounding out the venues is Eagle Heights, a fantasy course set in the Pacific Northwest and two courses from Bay Harbor, Michigan, The Bay Harbor Golf Club and the nine-hole Preserve.

Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition features four golf swing options including the standard two- and three-click methods, a Natural Swing where the golfer moves the mouse forward and backward to emulate a normal golf swing and a Sim Swing which is based on adjustable settings of style, strength and distance through the Edit Players setup. Demos of all swing styles are provided in the 2-CD package.

Customization of Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition includes three types of balls to play, each with specific reaction properties, hole fly-bys, ten golfer models from which to choose and play-by-play commentary by CBS golf analyst and PGA pro, David Feherty. A player creation function allows you to both edit and create either human or computer golfers with attendant preferences such as appearance, club selection, swing type, style, strengths (and weaknesses) and club distance.

Game types contained in Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition range from stroke and match play to skins, scrambles and Bingo Bango Bongo. Controls can be customized in the areas of course conditions such as sky (4 options), wind (5), pin difficulty (10), ground settings (5) and fog which can be toggled on/off. Team play, gimmies and mulligans are also optional.

Roots & Influences

This 1999 edition is one of the continuing line of Microsoft golf titles.

Review: Overall

Previously developed by Access, some wondered about the future of Microsoft Golf after the software giant moved production to Friendly Software. At least for now, the series is still alive and kicking with the release of Microsoft Golf 1999 (MSG99). There was a natural tendency to consider the game as Links Lite at one time but there are enough significant differences in the two now that make such a comparison unwarranted. Unfortunately, many of those differences are negative but more on that shortly.

MSG99 gives you 117 holes of golf in the same package. That's six full 18-hole courses and one nine-hole venue. Of the six full courses, four are real-life replications, one a fantasy and one is a compilation of 18 holes from various golf courses designed by architect Donald Ross. The fantasy course is set in the northwest United States while the other four include The Links at Casa de Campo, Teeth of the Dog at Casa de Campo, Michigan's Bay Harbor and the Greg Norman designed Medalist in Hobe Sound in Florida. The 9-hole course is also located at Bay Harbor.

If this game has nothing else, it has options and more options. Adjustments, configurations and decisions abound for those wishing to customize the game to personal tastes. Before I get to the golfer edits, I'll mention a few pre-game choices that must be made. There are four types of swings available in MSG99: standard two- and three-click modes, a natural swing and "sim swing." A nice feature of the game is the availability of a swing demonstration for all four.

First, though, you'll have to decide whether to toggle the Recommended Power Indicator on or off. This handy little option puts a "target" line on your swing meter (if on) that takes the guess work out of how close to the full power line you need to click to execute a decent shot. For more of a challenge, expert gamers will want to ignore this option. The most interesting of the swings is the natural mode.

Unlike several major golf simulations that require an either/or decision on which way to move the mouse to replicate the swing, MSG99 makes it easy. Once you hold the left mouse button (LMB) down, you can move it in any direction at all to set up the "path." The "downswing" then becomes mouse movement in exactly the opposite direction, staying as close to the path as possible. Variations from the path (and speed) result in errant, short or long shots. Before this option can be used, you'll have to calibrate your mouse swing speed using an in-game tool.

Although the box boasts of "10 different game types," I was only able to find five scoring modes. Perhaps there are more for the Internet online players but I didn't see the additional types myself. The five choices from which you can choose in single player mode consist of regular Stroke play, Match play (two players or two teams), Skins (two to four individuals), Scramble (team play) and Bingo Bango Bongo, again two to four players. I suppose if you count Skins and Bingo, Bango, Bongo as three types each (two, three or four players), Match play with two modes (individual or team) and Scramble or Stroke play as one each, you come up with 10 types of play. If this is what the marketers and designers meant on the box, I consider that a fairly dubious way to parlay five types of play into ten (not to mention misleading).

To customize your game, you can choose easy or difficult pin positions. There are six, more than most golf simulations I know about, including four moderate and two challenging (on severe slopes, near the edge of the green, etc.) You can select various playing tips for aid if you wish -- hole flybys, overhead view, a Links-like aiming pin and customizable shot options with spin, height and camera angles. To access these option requires a single onscreen right click.

The standard four play options are available including an 18 hole outing, nine front or nine back holes or practice (any course). Weather contingencies are numerous with 16 possible settings: sky (sunny, mostly sunny, mostly cloudy, cloudy), wind (calm, lite breeze, moderate, strong or very strong), ground (very dry, dry, normal, wet, very wet) and fog (on or off).

When you arrive at the clubhouse, you can edit or create your onscreen golfer. There are four models (two male, two female) from which to choose. You can opt to create both human players or computer controlled golfers. A series of menu options begins with appearance, followed by club selection, preferences, style, strengths and distance. While designing the appearance of your golfer, you can choose one of the aforementioned four models (somewhat limited by today's (c. 1999) standards), enter a name and use a sliding scale to select shirt color.

As for club selection, the game has the basic 18 of most games of like ilk including two drivers (10.5 or 8.5 loft), three woods, nine irons, three wedges (pitching, sand and lob) and a putter. As is the norm, you can only carry 14 in your bag in any round. Choosing preferences covers a wide area. First, you'll choose what type of ball to use from three types (two- or three-piece surlyn and balata) and they do react differently so it's simply a matter of personal likes and dislikes. A healthy number of tee box choices is available (nine) with two from the red, two white, four blue (ranging from good amateur to touring pro) and one black (tournament). Many of the multiple choices of the same color deal more with variety than difficulty.

Still under preferences, you decide whether to have an auto-caddie or not; obviously, with one your clubs are selected automatically. It's also here you decide on your swing type (discussed earlier). To elaborate a bit on the choices in swing type, you must choose one of seven settings for both swing speed and length. The former ranges from slower through faster while the latter offers options ranging from shorter to longer. How well these are executed will depend in part on the type of golfer you chose earlier (amateur, local pro, professional and so forth). Finishing up the preferences, you can choose to have a grid shown (for help in determining terrain levels) while putting, chipping and putting, always or never.

Continuing with player editing, the next section deals with style. The settings for creating either a human or computer controlled player differ somewhat. In creating a human player, you'll set the level (beginner, amateur, local pro, touring pro or champion) which affects the speed and accuracy of hitting the marks on the swing meter. Height is another option from which to choose for ball striking style (very high, high, average, low or very low) and you can set your golfer with various skills at putting spin on the ball (strong draw, soft draw, straight, soft fade and strong fade).

For computer players as well as human players using the simulation swing, you'll need to set aggressiveness, another choice of five settings including very cautious, cautious, average, aggressive and very aggressive. These settings impact the computer- controlled player quite substantially so choose with care. Finally, you'll need to determine how your player goes about course management by assigning a skill of below average, average or good. With these settings along with the other options discussed above, you can try to replicate your favorite pro, a friend or even yourself.

Incidentally, the simulation swing is the software generated simulation golf swing. You simply click on the Swing button on the game toolbar to execute it. In the edit player section, you'll need to carefully examine the settings you choose, such as style, strength and distance. This is the least challenging of the the four swing types.

The last player edit is concerned with establishing your golfer's strength in 10 categories. All fields are rated between one and five with five being the best. The areas to which these settings must be applied are driver, fairway woods, long, mid and short irons, the short game, sand play, putting, expertise in difficult lies and prowess in windy conditions. In a fine line of distinction, the game points out that these settings are more geared toward skill abilities than in physical attributes. The final, although quite important, setting is distance where you'll choose from a range of possible ranges.

As you get ready for your round, you've got to decide whether or not to allow mulligans and/or gimmies. Oddly, there is no option on the length of gimmie you can set -- it's 24 inches, period. When you actually get on the first tee, you'll see a menu bar running along the bottom of the screen. Included here are topics such as menu, help, views, options, player and game. If you select menu, you'll have the chance while on the course to select top and reverse views (overlaying the main course and not adjustable in size), top view always showing or just the main view. Under options you can select drop ball, concede hole, another window to preferences, conditions, statistics and scorecard. For players you can change swing type (an unusual in-game option) or remove a player from the game.

Other bottom menu items offer instant changes or accessibility to flybys, grids, ball spin, height, rotation of the golfer and scorecard along with club-distances, ball lie, wind and a hole profile (side graph). While you are playing your round, you'll hear the always amusing David Feherty give forth with some cutting remarks when poor play is observed and nice ego-boosters if you're playing well. Fortunately, there is a way to toggle him off -- I say fortunately because by the third hole (and I played repeatedly and even reinstalled once) he started stuttering on his comments. He began to repeat the first three or four words of each phrase, three times each, before he could finish a sentence. My machine far exceeds the minimum (or even maximum) requirements for this game so I give the nod to software problems (my drivers are the latest as well). Perhaps I had a defective copy.

Unfortunately, Mr. Feherty's problem was just one of several I experienced during gameplay with Microsoft Golf 1999. Beyond his stutter, at times my ball would visually look like it was on the green but my caddie and the game insisted I was in the fairway and clubbed me accordingly. When I overrode the club and chose putter, I was quickly admonished with a dismal putt that obviously went though fairway disguised as the green. But it got worse. At other times, I was clearly on the fringe of the green but had to shoot as though I was gouging out of heavy rough -- yes, rough, not even fairway. This visual calamity in a golf simulation is unsatisfactory to the max. This is definitely one of my pet peeves in golf simulations.

There is no sense of movement on the golf course as the flag remains unmoving even in very strong winds. It's disconcerting to see the flag on the green point one way when the wind meter is showing a strong breeze coming from the other direction. I set up a computer controlled player, John Daly, to accompany me in my test rounds. Poor John. At some stages in the round, he would have no feet, even in the fairway. Perhaps that was why, inexplicably, he would top the ball or drive it a mighty 120 yards off the tee, although there was never an actual match up of the no feet problem with the poor shot problem.

An occasional option for a crowd would have been nice but, on the other hand, since there is no tournament mode I suppose it's just as well. And my last major complaint is a very basic one. You can never assume that your shot is automatically lined up when the screen redraws (usually instantly) and you're facing toward the fairway or the green. Most of the time, in fact, the majority of the time, it would automatically set up the direction of the next shot. Once poor direction was denoted a few times, my paranoia set in and I began to use the "aim pin" feature on every shot.

Microsoft Golf 1999 certainly has the name behind it, a name that would lead one to believe that the product inside the box was worthy. Unfortunately, there are too many irritating little bugs and too many better golf simulations on the store shelves to allow this one to play without a handicap. It's a quick play but no quicker than most. It's a pleasant visual journey but no more so than others and decidedly less then some. My advice -- spend your hard earned green fees somewhere else and get your money's worth.

Review: Enjoyment

Having played all the major golf simulations on the market many times over, this rating for me represents one of comparison and, unfortunately, it just doesn't compete on the same level with some of the others. I was frustrated at times by the inconsistencies of the program itself -- problems that shouldn't be there with the number of previous iterations of the game.

Review: Graphics

Very good for the most part. Pleasant to look at but still with an artificial feel to it. Some glitches detracted from gameplay such as missing feet on occasion.

Review: Sound

If it were only Feherty in this department the rating would be higher. The ambient sounds not distinguished and the music is, well, the music. Fortunately it doesn't play during your round.

Review: Replay Value

Comes with six full courses and a 9-hole venue. That's fairly good for one game under one box top but, even so, gets to be repetitive after awhile.

Review: Documentation

You'd think {@Microsoft} could put a little more green into a manual. This one is fairly poor.

Production Credits