| Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1246 |
Release Date |
CRZ Filesize |
Par |
Course Length |
| 2003-03-14 |
30,018,434 bytes |
72 |
7050 yards |
| Type |
Style |
CRZ Filename |
|
FICTIONAL |
PARKLAND |
Valley5.crz |
| Course ID |
Course Key |
| f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1 |
4b50fcbae119a5e7b49ebe71f5de1343 |
|
LINKS CORNER REVIEW |
Reviewed by Jon Weinrieb
June 2003
Glacier Lake Valley Golf Club was created by David Schwartz. It is a fictional, par-72 'parkland' [designer's term] course measuring 7,050 yards (that is the only tee). It is a 28.6 MB download. There is no cameo, splash, custom flags, sounds, or hole previews.
From what I can gather, this is David's first official APCD release. There appear to be several of his beta courses floating around (Marion Bridge Golf Club and Seaview Redux) but they were never released in final form.
From David's Glacier Lake Valley Golf Club Read Me:
'Hi.Thank-you for downloading this apcd course. My design philosophy is based on four principles: 1) Reward good shots and penalize bad ones. I don't like courses where you can miss the snap badly and still have a decent chance at par; 2) I like to make the player have to decide if its worth the risk to hit the driver on a few holes or play it safe and choose another club; 3) you won't find grass clumps etc on my courses. There is nothing worse, or more unfair in my opinion, than unrealistic 6 inch shots that often result when one of these clumps is in front of you and 4) while I like my courses to be aesthetically pleasing I do not load them down with 3d objects etc. I like fast rendering courses more than I like scoreboards and t.v. cameras. Glacier lake valley was created on the Apple version of the apcd. Currently, this version does not support hole previews.'
Well, unfortunately, the lack of hole previews was last on my long list of serious flaws in this course. They are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that the designer would be well served to focus on APCD skill and less on a design philosophy for now.
David acknowledges a few minor issues, although this contrition fails to address the overall lack of refinement and APCD acumen:
'Known issues - there are a couple of artifacts around 3 greens that appear darker than the surrounding terrain. They do not affect the path of the ball. Also, there are some artifacts around the edges of 2 of the water traps on hole #1. These have been tested to ensure that what appears as a silver of water is recognized as the proper terrain. Much effort was put in trying to correct these issues but short of starting over I could not resolve them.'
In this case, it is irrelevant whether the routing of a hole is fair and whether there are unrealistic clumps here and there. The stock textures, cloned trees, lack of mappings, poor texture transitions and dreadful plantings (where there even were plantings) were so visually unappealing that the little nuances that the designer is obviously concerned with go unnoticed. There needs to be a focus on the bigger picture here; on APCD skill and how to put a quality course together.
It is clear that significant thought and creativity went into this effort and I encourage David to work on his APCD skills because he clearly cares deeply about his designs, as evidenced by his Read Me file. Perhaps focus on a single course with an eye toward technical merit would serve him well. The Read Me file contains detailed information and pro tips on each hole and, as illustrated above, David has a relatively sensible design philosophy. Some time with the tutorials and perhaps some good beta testing may go a long way for him. But the lack of sophistication exhibited in Glacier Lake Valley is insurmountable and ruins the creativity that I believe David possesses.
Additionally, somehow the mountain pano does not quite square with most people's impression of a 'parkland' course. It is a valley course to be sure, but it is engulfed, like many before it, by Whistler.
The bottom line, unfortunately, is that this course is not worth your time.
|
This course is available as a FREE download.
|
|
Download course
|
Please support Links Corner
|
