Links Championship Edition ships

Bold, Destineer’s Macintosh game label, has announced that it is shipping the Mac version of Links Championship Edition. In fact, the game began shipping a week ago, on July 26th — the date that Bold had promised earlier this year the long-anticipated golf simulation would ship.

Calling the game “a massive package,” Destineer president Peter Tamte noted that Links Championship Edition ships with 13 full courses, unlike previous versions of the game that usually shipped with only five courses. “Plus, the entire game has been re-written to offer completely new graphics and physics. And, we are also now including a course designer — which is a full 3D editing application that lets players create their own courses,” said Tamte.

What’s more, 17 golfers have been incorporated in the new game, including Sergio Garcia, Annika Sorenstam and others. An included “course converter” enables users to import many Links courses that had been released as add-ons for earlier editions of Links. Users can also download thousands of courses created by other Links users, available for download on the Web. Want to compete with other Links players? You can go online through direct connections or via GameRanger.

The game also features the Arnold Palmer Course Designer — a full-fledged course editor software that enables users to create or edit their own courses, limited only by their imagination.

Links Championship Edition requires Mac OS 9 or higher, or Mac OS X. The game requires a G3/266MHz or faster with at least 64MB RAM — 128MB and 300MHz is required if you plan to use the course designer.

This is Bold’s sophomore effort for the Macintosh — the company released Age of Empires II Gold Edition last fall. Destineer has also announced plans to release a Macintosh version of Halo, the 3D action game from Bungie, sometime in 2003.