Genre: Sports
Developer: TESoft
Publisher: Panasonic

Pebble Beach Golf Links, the title that came packaged with the 3DO for some time, has some rough edges naturally; the tree sprites are very pixelized, and the whole in-game engine looks like it belongs to a first-generation title. On the positive side, each hole opens with beautiful, FMV narrations about the hole you're about to play, and the golfers themselves are FMV superimposed onto the course, which means they're fluidly animated, and add to the realism.

The music is the kind of cheesy light techno you'd hear playing in a low-budget "Let's learn how to golf!" video, yet it fits the game oddly well, and is unobtrusive. Sound effects are clear, and adequately give the impressions of a swiftly swinging club, a struck golf ball, and tree leaves getting struck by that ball (especially when I play, unfortunately). Seems like sound was not an emphasis, but it is passable given that no game can, indeed, be silent.

This area is where Pebble Beach Golf Links shines. Setting up a shot is easy; you choose the direction of the hit, taking the wind into play, then select a club, align your golfer's feet to curve the shot one way or the other, then use a power meter, similar to those in a soccer or football game, to strike the ball. The interface is nicely laid out, and while putting, a grid displaying the polygons is used to show the slope of the ground. My golf friends have told me that the game is a fairly good representation of the real game.

There is only one course in this title. That course, however, is Pebble Beach, and every tree, house, and slope was painstakingly recreated using the game engine. I am not a golf fan in the least, but this title is very difficult to put down, especially when playing with a human opponent. It seems like the developers were really trying hard to take you someplace- Pebble Beach- and they succeeded in spades; they hit something intangible that not only makes me feel like I'm actually there, but something that also makes for pure, fun, gratifying gameplay.