A little over three years ago I was at E3 covering the event for Operation Sports. At the show I got a chance to check out the next-generation of sports games that would be releasing on the Xbox 360. When meeting with the folks from 2K Sports, the other people from OS and myself were focused on getting answers for two main questions: Will we see another 2K football game? And are you guys going to do anything with the license for Links that you acquired? While they couldn’t say anything official about either, my optimism led me to believe that in time we would see 2K Sports resurrect both titles.

All-Pro Football has now come and gone, which overall wasn’t a bad game, but with lack of an NFL player license it didn’t sell nearly as well as many had been hoping. This begs the question: “what about Links?”

Well Take-Two is still fighting off Electronic Arts, and the recent flop (at least from a critics' perspective) of Don King’s Prizefighter, leaves me with little hope to hold onto while praying to see another Links title. I just don’t foresee Take-Two going out on the limb to bring back a sports title that they haven’t ever published, especially when they’re shutting down established series like College Hoops 2K.

What boggles my mind is the fact that to this day Links 2004 is still the most online friendly golf game released.

Not to mention that now when I look at Prizefighter all I keep thinking to myself is, “That should have been Links, that development money could have gone towards Links." But alas it is too late for that now. So it appears that the next installment of Links will be something that the gaming world will never see.

When released, Links 2004 gave golf gamers an amazing an unprecedented experience. At that point in time we still hadn’t seen a Tiger Woods game online on a console. So for many of us it was our first chance to play a round of golf from our living rooms with a buddy a few states away.

What boggles my mind is the fact that to this day it is still the most online friendly golf game released. And Links 2004 gets that crown because the team who worked on it understood that golf is an incredibly individual sport. Yes, it’s more fun to go out there and play a round with your buddies, but really they don’t have any effect on you on the course. It’s fun to talk smack in between their shots, or sometimes even during their swing if you want to play like that I suppose. But with golf titles you can actually tee off alone and get a great golf experience.

Links 2004

One of these features that Links had years ago and Tiger is just now adopting is the ability to have online players hit at the same time. No need to wait for your buddy to take his whack at the ball because you could both tee off at the same time. I understand that some people actually want to watch others hit, which Links allowed, if that was the route you wanted to go; however, if you wanted to tee off simultaneously that option was there as well. For gamers wanting to get that quick golfing fix, it meant you could get 18 holes in with friends in right around a half an hour if you moved somewhat quickly.

The biggest lesson that Tiger needs to learn from Links is giving gamers the ability to create their own tournaments and play them alone. Although Microsoft’s stint in sports gaming didn’t last long it did have at least one short moment of glory: the creation of the XSN Sports site. It allowed people to go online to track what was going on in their Microsoft Sports games. While it wasn’t much in comparison to 2K Sports' site for football and basketball, the one thing that XSN truly delivered on was golf.

Links gave people the opportunity to set up tournaments on a specific course, and then customize the tourney by choosing different weather conditions, pin placements, and whether or not you wanted to include a cut in your tournament. Some of my fondest online memories were playing in a tour created by some members at OS. I could log on and battle it out with them each week trying to ensure that I wasn’t one of the poor saps who got cut from the last two days of play.

The best feature of MS' online tournaments was the ability to play these tournament rounds by yourself if you chose. I know playing on your own might sound boring to any of those people that hadn’t experienced it, but this was truly a fantastic revolutionary idea for golf gaming. For anyone who has played in an online league, you know that sometimes scheduling with opponents is the worst part of the league experience, and Links eliminated that for you. If you wanted to log on and enter your code to play the round alone you could. This made it easy to play around your schedule, making it relatively easy to get four full rounds in over a weekend. For those who didn’t want to play alone you could always schedule and play with up to four other buddies at the same time.

I know Links wasn’t the perfect game. Links lacked a lot of depth when it came to offline play, but as a first effort as a console title it was truly a home run. I just wish that Microsoft or 2K Sports would have continued with the series. The smooth gameplay, the ability to play 18 holes in about 30 minutes, and the great multiplayer experience it offered made for an untouchable title that should have become a hit series for next-generation systems. Now more than ever it appears that Links was a dying star, giving off a single beautiful flash and then disappearing forever. And though it may be gone, some gamers still long for the incredible experience that it once provided.