Links LS2000, Microsoft, £29.99
Any golfer who wants to take on Arnold Palmer in a match play competition at St Andrews can start here. The player can select the weather, and fast or slow green conditions, and, if things are going badly can even order up fog so that the match is cancelled. St Andrews is presented in all its glory and the user gets wonderful views of the old course. Other courses available include Covered Bridge Countryclub, Hapuna and Maunga Keo Resort. There is a choice of strokes competitions, matchplay, skins, or any of 40 types of competition. Part of the commentary is by David Feherty, who offers some very unkind dry remarks when a shot is fluffed.
The play is a golfer's paradise, with professional help available at each hole and the ability to fade or draw shots, or to flop or chip, with a full array of clubs. There are three swing types, easy, classic or powerstroke. Personally, I found the powerstroke very difficult and selected the easy swing. The game technique really needs nearly as much practice as the real-world golfer would put in on the driving range. Other features include online play with a friend by modem or over a network There are also wonderful video clips of St Andrews and surrounding sites and interviews and presentations relating to tour players. There is an excellent handbook that walks the user through the program's many options. For someone partial to the odd game, on and off screen, this new edition was very impressive. Info
www.microsoft.com/games
- Tony Dooley
Timmy's Travel House, Iona Software, £19.99
It seemed a slightly unlikely idea: to draw three to eight-year-olds into maths, pre-reading and thinking games by way of a cartoon crocodile who travels the world and switches between English, Japanese, Spanish and Swahili. The five-year-old half of the reviewing team quickly dispelled any doubts by putting most of his other CD-Roms aside in favour of long sessions on this one.
Initially, he was very attracted to the interactive language modules, where the words for common objects and phrases are read aloud in the four languages, usually in response to a mouse-click. This is his second year in a Gaelscoil and he is very interested in the idea of many names for one item. Over time, however, his main interest switched to a nicely produced series of arts-and-crafts, story telling and song activities. They continued the international theme, but at the same time gave well-tried multimedia activities enough new twists to hold his attention. Info - www.ionasoft.com
- Fiachra O Marcaigh