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Heartbreaker
by Francois Cristallo

Links Corner Course Database ID Number - 1603
Release Date CRZ Filesize Par Course Length
2005-07-11  40,640,512  bytes 72  7097 yards
Type Style CRZ Filename
FICTIONAL  HEATHLAND  Heartbreaker_locked.crz.crz 
Course ID Course Key
   

COURSE SCREENSHOTS

LINKS CORNER REVIEW

Reviewed by: Big Three

Designer Background: Francois Cristallo (LeWAW in the LC Forums) is among the more prolific designers of Links Courses. Heartbreaker is the 8th course released by Francois. His previous releases are Waterworld, Arsonval Golf Club, Bellecombe Village, Crystal Ball GC, Ether Links @ Crozon Peninsula, Fagen's Forest and GC3D - The Virtual Plantation.

Course Overview: Heartbreaker is a Par 72 of 7097 yards. With 5 sets of tees, the course can play as short as 6255 yards. As explained in the read-me file, the course really was a test course for Francois' Dorado Beach - East Course project. It was a layout to test the textures and mesh work he plans on using for Dorado. In the end, he decided to release the test course as Heartbreaker. Heartbreaker uses the outstanding custom pano created by Rick Weathers that was used on Xilver Prairie.

Layout/Playability: The first thing that strikes you as you stand on the first tee is the narrowness of the fairways. Get used to it, because it doesn't change the rest of the round. The fairways are not only very narrow, but they also snake back and forth, so that even a perfectly straight shot may run out into the rough. There is not a first cut to drift into, just a few feet of unplanted rough, followed by rough that is moderately planted with tall grasses. Fortunately, there is no deep grass. The spacing of the tall grass objects is such that escape from the planted rough is usually not too difficult, unless you are buried in one of the tall grass objects or it is immediately in front of your ball. Most of the landing areas have a bunker on at least one side, making hitting the skinny fairways even more crucial.

The greens are not too difficult and are moderately sloped. The putting is fair, although there may be a pin or two that would be extreme in the M/F, F/M or F/F Mod settings. Playing at M/M should not be a problem. However, some of the greens are a bit small for the approach required, and there are a few that are not very deep, so anything coming out of the rough is not going to hold. On the plus side, the flat valley location means that the course is quite flat with little elevation change, making distance calculation and club selection on approaches easier.

My favorite hole is the 14th, mostly because it has a fair landing area and breaks the string of monotonous narrow fairway hole designs. Three small bunkers on the left, and a large one along the right bracket the landing area. There is plenty of landing room so if you hit the bunkers you have hit a bad shot, which is something that cannot be necessarily said for most of the course. The round green is tiered into a front and back section, so your approach needs to be finely judged if you want to get close. Make it to the correct level, and your putts will not be too troubling.

Mr. Cristallo said he released this test course because it was a fun layout to play. I tend to disagree with his statement. The name Heartbreaker is an apt description of this course, unless there is a different part of the anatomy that you wish to describe as being broken. Playing Champ Click, I found the constant strain of trying to hit unfairly narrow fairways to be tedious at best, and the lack of hole design variation to be boring no matter what the swing type. RTS players and Pro Clickers, where driving straight tends to be a bit easier, may enjoy this layout more than the rest.

Planting/Textures: The planting of the course never quite seems to mesh for me. Most notably, many of the tall grasses are very dark green to almost black and just appear to be out of place with the rest of the environment. They are suggestive of a much more wet location than the environment appears to be. A drier looking grass, with much more browns and yellows, would have fit the overall scenery more accurately. As is, I just never felt like I was looking at a believable environment. The textures were fine, with the color flow from one to the next working well, although a lack of contrast made the green difficult to pick out from the fairway in the Top View. Unfortunately, the yellowish green palette used served to heighten the discordant look of the dark green/black grass. I thought the coarseness of the textures were very well done, giving the surfaces a believable look; not to smooth and not to grainy.

The bunkers deserve special mention. The sand in the bunkers is very well done. The sand is depicted as being unraked, with a small amount of debris scattered about. It is one of the coolest looking textures I've seen. The problem is that there is nothing that would be causing the debris so they too look out of place. The texture is for Dorado, and the debris would be from the palm trees, so knowing that probably contributes to it looking out of place, although it does look spectacular. In close up view, the lips of the bunkers look outstanding as well. You can almost see the fine roots of the trees and grass growing out of the side. However, from a more distant view the lips look a bit out of place and the bunker sand tiles quite a bit. Hopefully Francois can work this out on Dorado, because the close up effect is outstanding.

APCD: As usual, the technical application of Francois' work is very good to excellent. There are no glaring errors. Francois mentions in the read-me that there are a few errors that he didn't have time to fix, but they weren't not readily apparent. As expected, you can count on a course by Mr. Cristallo to be well constructed.

Extras: Francois has included most of the usual extras. As always, his artistic flair shows through with an interesting splash screen and the custom flag and cameo, both of which feature a depiction of a broken heart. The hole previews are artistically rendered as well, with little heart symbols signifying distances, although they could have contained a bit more information. Tournament environment lovers will be disappointed by the lack of crowds.

Mod Notes: The course is Mod friendly, with anything at M/M or below easily playable. There may be a couple of pins that are a bit on the edge at faster settings, but I'd say you can probably use the faster settings without running into anything unfair.

Summary: I can't help but feel that this course was, indeed, a test course. Francois' read-me contributes to this feeling when it states 'Heartbreaker is . a test-course, where I test all my textures for Dorado. Heartbreaker is not a beta-test-course, but a final release . it's not a perfect design, and you will find some minor errors, but I don't have the time to correct everything.' It never looks or feels like it belongs together, and the repetitively narrow layout doesn't lend itself to an interesting or necessarily fair playing experience. I generally wouldn't recommend this course, although Pro Clickers may find the narrowness gives them a good challenge.

USER RATINGS

 Votes cast
Ace3 %1
Eagle30 %9
Birdie40 %12
Par23 %7
Bogey or worse3 %1

The User Course Reviews and polls have been removed from the forum due to the low numbers of members. The information above is presented merely for historical interest.

This course is available as a FREE download.


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