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War Acres Golf Club
by Steve Pope
| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1389 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2004-01-17 |
31,000,000 bytes |
71 |
7062 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
WOODLAND |
WarAcresGolfClub_locked.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
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LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
2/3/04
Reviewed by: Chuck Clark
Background: Steve Pope is a real life firefighter from the Midwest area of America. He has been designing and releasing Links golf courses since the APCD first became available. Like me he has learned from his earlier courses and they have gotten better and better as he goes along. Steve's best L2K1 courses include Fire Fighter Memorial and Prestige; both of which are on numerous peoples top course lists. Steve's first L2K3 course was the interesting and distinctive Sorento Golf Club; which was released last September (as a P2P). Sorento garnered high acclaim and deservedly was name an LC Recommended course for that month. War Acres is another P2P course available at apcd-courses.com. It has also been highly rated by many players, so I anticipate an interesting round of golf.
Overall Impression: War Acres is a woodland style course which looks much like the courses you see in North Carolina or Virginia. There are forests of pines with wispy brown grasses underneath. The textures used were nice and complimented each other well. One small comment I had was that the grass textures looked a bit too green (at least on my computer); but of course they may look very different on your system. This course is very realistic looking; it looks and plays like a real course. It is very well done and very playable. The fairways and greens are large and inviting. Although there are many creeks and small ponds, they don't really seem to be in play much. This is a relatively level golf course too, without any great elevation swings or changes. The mounding is subtle and very believable. In summary it is finely built, pleasant to look at and very realistic.
Playability/Shot Values: This is a very realistic playing golf course. The fairways are very generous. You can generally pull out your driver and bang away. You'll generally have fairly level lies here as well. Wild shots will get you into the numerous small creeks or ponds. The greens are mostly large as well, with lots of cool bumps and humps. Getting your approach shot on the green is not a problem, but getting it near the hole is another story. When your approach gets on the wrong side of a bump or ridge, then your ball will feed away from the hole. This puts a premium on accuracy you may not realize upon first inspection. There were no holes that really got your throat tight though! Like some real courses in Links War Acres sometimes plays a bit too easy. You should also know that this is a par 71; it only has three par 5's. There were no reachable par 4's and the pars 5's were all pretty long. I would have liked a bit more risk-reward type choices; but that's just me!
Favorite Hole: Although I really liked the hole with the two greens (8th?) and the 10th hole with the rock outcropping; I have to pick the 13th hole as my favorite. This is a very long (630 yards) three-shot par 5. You don't usually see many real three shot holes anymore, so this was an interesting change (for me anyway). The second shot is played over a large scrubby area much like Pine Valley. The lay up area for the second shot must be threaded around and through a number of bunkers. I really enjoyed this shot, even though I seem to find one of the bunkers in the middle of the fairway every time I play it. The green also had some more of those interesting bumps and ridges as stated above.
Visuals: A very attractive and realistic looking golf course. The planting especially was very well done. It is obvious that Steve is learning and using many of the same techniques that Mike Jones does. The planting looked very MJ like which is a good thing. There were bunker rakes around each sand trap; which I thought were a really neat addition as well. The creeks and ponds were all set as reflective which is good and can be bad. On the good end the reflections are cool and very realistic looking. On the bad end there can be (and is) some bugs (not the designers fault) in the reflections which can be hard to find and fix. These glitches will show up from some angles and not from others. There were a few of these bugs at War Acres, but they really don't detract from the overall experience. You probably won't even notice them, unless you go looking for them. The edge treatment on a lot of the water and bunkers was very simply done. There weren't any lips or mud banks. The grass generally just runs straight into the hazard. This makes the course look very clean and simple. Although this can certainly be seen in real life in places, it is more common to find a bit of a lip or bank between the grass and the hazard.
Technique: The APCD technique displayed here was close to flawless. The seam blending was very well done, the planting was superb, and the extras around the tee boxes (walls, flowers, cart paths) were finely crafted. I did have a few small comments though. I really liked the hole previews but I wondered why the colors on them looked so washed out and dull. As mentioned above, I would have liked a bit more work on the edges of bunkers and water. The textures looked very green to me and were almost a bit too nice looking in places. I also wondered about the collision properties on the trees. I seemed to get a pretty hard bounce every time I went near them. Maybe it was just my bad luck; but they seemed to have really big trunks! One other thing I noticed (which is a pet peave of mine) is how close the course got to the edge of the plot in places. Despite all this silly nit-picking, the technique was very well done. It is obvious that Steve is one of the top craftsmen using the APCD today. As an example, the cart paths were really well done (you could see the rubber tire marks); and the wood steps and (various types) walls were a great addition and added to the realism factor immensely.
Summary: A beautiful and realistic looking golf course that is very playable and fun. If you are one of those people who really like woodland golf courses which look and play like a real course; then this course is for you. If you like courses that are a bit more 'out there', then War Acres may not be your cup of tea. As an 'out there' kind of person I would have liked to have seen a bit more risk-reward type shots; some tighter fairway; some smaller greens; a bit more elevation change and some more threatening hazards. I think that this is a course that will appeal strongly to a number of people. But I also think that some of you Pro-Clickers may find it a bit too easy. Check it out for yourself on the screen shots below.
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CLIPNOTES by Ben Bateson (ousgg) |
Description
Fictional, heathland course |
Location
TBA |
Conditions
TBA |
Concept 4/10
There's a sad lack of premise behind War Acres. It's a name resonant with
the sort of imagery that Bull Run used so well, but there's too little theme
to this course. What you get is a wide-open, expansive course with a
moorland feel, despite being semi-enclosed with trees. There's very little
cohesion between holes: the over-riding impression is of a few disparate
ideas looking for something much more than a P2P release to tie them
together. |
Appearance 8/10
Oddly, I preferred the texture colours in the preview to those on the course itself, which were too vibrantly green. And one piece of
flowerbed-lined path was almost insulting. Let's not ignore the superb grass and tree planting, though, and masterful use of elevations:
while War Acres isn't quite perfect, there's plenty of mastery to justify the cost. |
Playability 4/10
So many holes seem wide open and almost immediately forgettable, which is such a shame. There is a moment or two to be had on
the front half, but the lack of an environment and the ability to attune holes to said environment cost dearly towards the end. Some
greens which are unplayable at high speeds, and a suspicion of a few steel trees, does very little to help. War Acres just doesn't have
that draw factor for me. |
Challenge 10/10
Whatever its other flaws, War Acres is perfectly pitched for both casual and serious players. There's very little treachery here, and just
about every hole is presented as an open book, which comes as a refreshing change - all that needs to be done is play carefully
planned, down-the-line golf. If you don't, expect bogies. If you do, try for birdie. It doesn't come much better, frankly. |
Technical 9/10
Even on close inspection, there's not too much to fault here, but there still exists a niggle or two, such as the cloned flowerbeds or the
colour scheme, which doesn't quite sit right. |
| Overall |
Not the most coherent or exciting of pay courses, but worthwhile if you're tiring of
tricked-up golf. |
35/50 |
Please remember that Clipnote reviews are the opinion of one person and do not constitute an 'Official' Links Corner review of the course. |
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