I didn't write very much here, becauseost of the games that I tried to complete didn't reallyclick with me and so I didn't complete them (exception was Anvil of Dawn). I still don't think the threads are a failure. I've tried several old games because of them and I like to read what the other time travellers wrote about their games.

Hope there will be another thread for the year 2000. I can't promise that I will complete a game, but I will at least try. And I will also try to write some lines about the games even if I don't like them and quit playing.

First of all Happy New Year everyone!! Hope 2022 is a great year for all of us.

Regarding these threads, I think that having people come here and say things, whether saying that a game is missing from the list or that they'll play X, Y and Z makes this worth it. If they play the game (and beat it) then that's a bonus.

For me, these threads have other purposes, beyond having people playing the games. These can be a place of discussion of said games, of sharing memories, of letting others know games they probably never heard of, of making new friends, and others things. You decide!

As long as there are people still interested in participating, I think it's worth continuing it. And for what depends on me, I'll create the one for the year 2000 between tomorrow and Tuesday, so look forward to it :).

Alrighty, I am looking forward to it.
... And should have commented more on this one regarding games played in the past, since there are at least 15 from this year's OP list that I played, and maybe a few more, since there are a few I'm uncertain about. Even finished seven, Age of Wonders, Dungeon Keeper 2, Planescape: Torment, Septerra Core, Alpha Centauri (well, I "won" it), Warcraft II (just to say I did, with cheats), and Worms: Armageddon.
The others I'm sure I played are Age of Empires II (just some three scenarios though, and won one, otherwise banged my head against the second one from that campaign and the first from another until I gave up), Darkstone (until it seemed like the random generation had messed up and something was unreachable, but maybe I was missing something), Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (vanilla, basically just did the first campaign and banged my head against the first scenario in the others that are accessible from the start, getting nowhere until I gave up), Might and Magic 7 (struggled to get to Mount Nighon with a very low level party for the learning mastery and did reach it... only to realize I needed 50 natural skill, not boosted, so was there for no reason and wasn't sure I'll be able to get back and gave up, had been put off by the less free character development compared to 6 anyway), Pharaoh (for a while, and just the base game, not also Cleopatra), RollerCoaster Tycoon (vanilla and probably also at least Corkscrew Follies, not sure how far I got though), Silver (up to the point where the, er, high seas version got stuck), and System Shock 2 (didn't get far). Technically also Homeworld, but that doesn't count, since I tried the first after playing the second, and when I started the second and saw you can't move the mothership I gave up right away.
I think I also played SimCity 3000, but might have also been SimCity 4, not entirely certain. Possibly also Tyrian (but I think it was the original, not 2000, and likely just the shareware portion). And I keep thinking of Caesar 3 too, probably didn't play it, but while I think it's just the connection with 2, since I definitely played that, something triggers some memories about 3 too, so not entirely sure I didn't at least try it way back.

The thread for 2000 is now live: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/time_travel_06_2000

Hello everyone!

And thank you bluethief for continuing the time travel threads!

Let me jump back into the year 1999 for a moment or two in order to relate a bit about my chosen game:
"Pro 18 World Tour Golf"

It was Psygnosis' first foray into the world of golf simulations. The actual developer team from Intelligent Games Ltd. had some prior experience, but wanted to compete with genre staples as the famous "Links" golf series.
Well, let us take a look at the result!
As mentioned in my announcement post, I am playing the Playstation 1 version of the game. On one hand, because I could not find a disc copy of the PC version, yet. And on the other hand, the console version is running without any compatibility issues!

[picture 01]
Here, we are treated with a very brief intro animation showcasing glimpses of the available golf courses.
The game features three authentic golf courses with 18 holes each.
The final image on the lower right hand side is the game's very scarce main menu. The icons represent from top to bottom: play golf (what else did you expect here?), golfer or player setup, and general options (screen position, sound levels, etc. only the basics for a Playstation 1 game).

[picture 02]
The course selection is done via an animated world map with a looping movie background. A nice detail is the small aeroplane flying around, heading towards the corresponding location of your highlighted course and then descending in a circle around it, as if it would be landing there. Neat--it gives the impression of the player actually travelling around the globe to those three golf resorts!
The courses are:
- Coeur D'Alene (USA),
- Royal County Down (Ireland), and
- The Lost City (South Africa)

Although these courses are not the usual suspects among professional golfers and hence, golf simulations, they provide a reasonable amount of diversity and diferent challenges for the player.
According to the game's packaging, the developer team put an enormous amount of work in mapping and photographing the actual real golf sites with an unprecedented precison of +/- 3 centimeters! (However, I am having the impression, that this high terrain accuracy is only represented in the original PC Windows version. The Playstation 1 port is propably downscaled, but still miles ahead of the consoles competition both before and after the release of "Pro 18 World Tour Golf"!)
The descriptions of each golf course within the game go into a lot of detail. That is why I am not going to post screenshot of their entire text.

[picture 03]
For those of you who are not familiar with the different competition rules or types in professional golf, the game offers five competition modes and corresponding rules summary besides the practice mode on individual holes.

Usually, I am playing a regular match of all 18 holes of a selected course, called "Strokeplay". The score is calculated by the amount of shots a player did need for each hole in comparison to a pre-defined standard for the corresponding hole. If the player finishes a hole with the same amount as the standard ("par", commonly between 3, 4 or 5 strokes) then you get zero points added, for every stroke/shot more you get a positive point accumulated, while for every stroke less than "par" you gain minus points. Winner is the player with the lowest score at the end of the chosen amount of holes to play (maximum 18 holes).
Playing all by yourself is quite relaxing, and can be compared somehow with playing a non-lethal "Worms" (artillery) game. (Without the stressful timr, though!) And each hole can take you two to 10 minutes.
Adding a computer-controlled competing golfer easily causes the game to take an eternity to finish all 18 holes. For this reason, I do not like to play against more than one AI at a time!

[picture 04]
Picture 04 introduces the first four of the eight real professional golfers that are modeled in the game. (The second batch of four professionals are in the upcoming picture 05.)
It is remarkable that "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" does feature not only one, two or three real golfers, but eight. There are additional golfer setups (and a few more faces and animations) for the player to choose from. And they all have perceivable different skills, preferences and handling!
It is not just some numbers or bars. Some, for instance, do not like at all to use the long range driver. Hence, they rarely pre-select it for the player, and the player suffers inaccuracy when using it. Individuals have various strengths and weaknesses depending on the tools used and circumstances (ground type, current weather, wind, altitude change, long or short distances) when doing so. One has a lot of power (very long range) but suffers on the control. Others share handicaps either on uphill or downhill accuracy. Some swing slow others much fasters--also represented in the progression speed of the "swing bar". Another one almost auto-corrects against the wind, while others are faring badly especially with wind from the side. Another one is more lenient against input/precision error on the "swing bar".
Nowadays, we hear a lot of complaints about the lack of diversity... well, here we find a respectable diversity in playable golfers: men and women, black and white, old and young...

Final observation regarding the playable golfers:
The player can create and customize their own golfer profile (similar to the way it is done in the "Links" series), either from the get go or by copying or modifying an existing golfer profile--even the real ones! (Only the computer-controlled version of the eight professionals are unchangeable.)

Upcoming, the additional real golfers, and some explanation of the game's mechanics and controls.

Kind regards,
foxgog

Hello again!

Let us continue with some more info about "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" (Playstation 1 port)!

[picture 05]
Here are the remaining profiles of the modeled professional golfers. Interestingly, the majority of them turned professional players in the eighties! Psygnosis (or IG Ltd.) did not went for the "one man stars" that were so prominent in the late nineties and the counterpart video games from Electronic Arts & co.
Whether this fact, that neither golf players nor golf courses were from the (at the time of development and release) current top famous list, had a negative impact on the game's reception or if it was related to poor marketing or the not so modern control scheme... I do not know.

[pictures 06 & 07]
Finally, some ingame screenshots from the playe's perspective!
I have chosen a nice scene which impressively depicts not only the implemented weather effects but also the remarkable drawing distance--this is on the first Playstation afterall!
The game features eight different weather conditions (available on all three courses) from which I only excluded the "very foggy" condition, as it simply reduces the drawing distance to less than 100 yards. The choice of weather condition gives an handicap (mainly in visibility) not only on the player himself, but also on the selected golfer. and the last two--'light rain' and 'rain'--change significantly the potential wind speeds and the way how the ball bounces of the various surface types.

As someone of you might have guessed already (e.g. based on observation in this screenshot comparison), the Playstation 1 was not capable to render such a drawing distance with such an amount of detail in real time. Thus, the game "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" shares another characteristic with the landmark series "Links": its terrain is composed of individual scanned photo material of the real golf courses and actual objects and assets on site, and then presented as pre-rendered still images!
There are only a few tiny animations in the scenes (besides the golfers and the ball trajectory), much less though than in "Links LS: 1998", for example. But like in "Links" you can rotate the camera view cone/point around in 360 degrees. You only have to wait a second for the new image being loaded and displayed. The game even allows for dispatching the camera center from the player's position in order to get another view or perspective on the terrain.

[picture 08]
Now, let us take a closer look at the ingame interface and ingame menu:
First we see our golfer (on Playstation always from the same side!). On the top right corner is the information field showing player's golfer name, and his/her current score (if playing a mode with individual score).

The white number inside a red triangular flag in the second line identifies on which hole we are playing. "Par 4" defines the standard amount of strokes or shots for completing this hole, and next to it the current shot number of the player. This information is switched out back and forth for the remaining distance to the current hole. (The first image is lacking the information of the second line, because it was taken on the training ground.)

The third line represents the currently chosen club (driver, wood, iron, putter, etc.) and swinging method (in both examples "straight"=no modifier).

On the bottom right corner is a surface or ground type indicator (e.g. green, in the rough, or in sand) for the current ball position or aiming pole location, and wind status and direction.

If you take a closer look, you will see a tall pole with black and white stripes and a floating distance measurement over it. This is your aiming pole, which the player can move around freely to set the golfer's aiming direction, as well as to determine the range and ground type--very useful when obstacles block your direct view!

On the press of a button (standard triangular) the player can open the menu bar on the bottom of the screen with the view control (manually rotating the camera or displacing the camera and rotating it there, and turn on/off the grid highlights on the putting green), the caddie options (most importantly the caddie guide--a schematic top-down map of the hole/area--, the automatic club suggestion and ball droping allowance), followed by the club and swing method selection.
The list of available clubs also displays the maximum range of each club (in yards), very handy for planning and preparing your shot! Yes, there is no realtime indicator, neither a number nor an arrow, arc or anything else for where your ball is going to land! There is also no limitation for placing your aiming pole, neither in distance nor with regard to obstacles!

(!) Here, the player has to manually consult the individually given information and estimate (calculate or guess) what club and strength to use, and were the resulting shot might be going!
As we are going to see in the next batch of screenshots, there also is not any in realtime updated map nor a marker for the current position of the player or of the ball--only a schematic diagram with seemingly arbitrary range figures (the same that actual golfer were receiving in printed form as a tract or booklet on the respective course).

The last option "game" allows to save and/or quit the ongoing game. A nice feature on the old console considering that playing a hole or match with AI or hot-seat players easily results in significantly longer sessions.

So, how do you actually play this game? What are the controls? And how to perform the stroke/shot?

Stay tuned for more im my upcoming update!

Kind regards,
foxgog

Hello dear time travellers!

I am really sorry for the long radio silence... my real life condition and circumstances have been quite difficult recently.
And I am slowly recovering and getting things back in order.

My promised update with details on each of the three playable golf courses in "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" on the original Playstation needs to wait some more time. (I could not even finish my posts in the former time travelling threads...)


But I wanted to show at least a little bit more about the somehow very similar but also fundamentally different controls of the gameplay of "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" compared to its peers, such as the Links series.

[picture 09]
This one depicts the game's simple controller layout on the Playstation One, the aforementioned schematic diagram with individual range figures for preparing your shot (demonstrated here on the driving range for training your opening 'T-shots' or long range driving skill), and the change of your shot direction (rotated roughly 45 degrees to the left in the example).

In the lower row of screenshots with the images from left to right we finally get to the second 'game changer' (besides emphasizing player's calculating their potential shot range based on the simple schematic representation of the respective hole's area with only a few range figures and the manual selection of an appropriate club): the 'revolutionary 4-click Pro Swing Meter' (as it is called on the back cover of the North American version for Playstation One--see: picture 11) which allows to add 'draw' and 'fade' directly on to your shots in real time.
What it boils down to is that besides the usual three clicks--one to initiate the here blue circular force meter to fill, another to hit the overall strength or peak of it, and the third one to determine your shots precision by clicking when the (circular) bar is close to the bottom's center line as the meter drops rapidly again--which sometimes is available with just two clicks by holding the first one down until the desired strength level is reached, in "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" you have a second bar (the green arc underneath) that fills rather quickly to add either a 'draw' or 'fade' (= a curved shot trajectory or left or right 'drift' so to speak) by clicking a fourth time left or right of its center line!
The highly successful Links series and other contestants in the Golf simulation genre usually let the player pre-select or set a certain 'draw' or 'fade' either through an extra menu or ball-to-shot alignment angle (technically also available in "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" in the swing type selection of the ingame menu--as seen on the lower right corner of picture 08 in my former post).

The difference is that these pre-selections are entirely static and pre-defined either as a general option or by your chosen value or configuration, although you can prepare and save some configurations for later re-use in certain games.
Other games, mostly older ones like Nintendo's original "Golf" (later inofficially known as "Mario Golf"), for instance, do add a 'draw' or 'fade' automatically depending on how far off your precision (last 'click'/button press) is!

The benefit of "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" 's 4-click swing method is, that you can intentionally add a 'draw' or 'fade' respectively in real time after you already initiated your shot meter and most likely hit the precision mark off the center either to its left or right in order to compensate for a lousy precision-click!
Being able to adapt your shot on-the-fly to correct (more or less) minor precision errors or aim for a curved trajectory in the first place (e.g. to circumvent an obstacle) is the real beauty of this system.
Of course, the gain in flexibility is somehow balanced with a rather quickly filling additional 'draw-fade' meter. But after a couple of attempts or minutes of experimenting with it, I can get easily repeatable results!

Critics and reviewers of the time criticized "Por 18 World Tour Golf" (both on PC and on Playstation One) for it's 4-click swing system being too fiddly, the lack of a realtime ingame map that would highlight your current ball position and should provide aid in aiming your shots, and the traditional old school approach to its graphics rendering without fancy realtime 3D ball flying camera views.

For me those two elements, the only schematic map diagram (requiring some range calculations or estimations in your head) and the unique 4-click swing system, do make the game more interesting and provides to a degree a more authentic feel.
The lack of a more accurate map with precise position or location indicator causes me to explore the areas of each hole a lot more and thus, making them more memorable to me. (Someone's 'trash' is another one's 'treasure', I guess.)


[picture 10]
Regarding the lack of a realtime 3D rendered ball flying camera of your shot or additional selectable camera view points I would like to note, that I did not miss them in "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" at all, because on the Playstation One the game automatically switches to a reversed camera shot near the shots target destination when the ball is getting closer to hit the ground again.
I tried to capture it on the two left most screenshots (top and bottom) in picture 10. First you can follow your ball nicely in the air until it is about to drop the first time on the ground again. At this very moment the camera swithces instantly to the reversed view point giving the player a clear depiction of the shots trajectory and final landing spot.
Before continuing to the next shot you have the option to view a replay of your current shot from the same reversed camera angle--very gratifying when you did a long range drive or were able land the ball directly into the hole!
This shot confirmation screen before continuing does offer the 'mulligan' (test shot, penalty-free shot re-attempt) option alongside the 'replay' option, if you allowed mulligans in the game rules before starting on each course.

A nice little detail is the animated flag on the pole over the hole. You can actually hit this 'goal' pole to let the ball bounce off from it and sometimes into the hole itself. But it gets removed when your shot landed already on the hole's green. Then the game dispalys a grid overlay of the hole's nearby area with tiny red and blue vertical lines indicating finer changes in inclinations of the surface, that otherwise might not always be so clearly visible from the deformation of the grid lines--in particular on sharper viewing angles due to the Playstation's relative low resolution compared to the PC version.
While 'putting' from within the 'green' around the hole the game does not implements the additional fourth click ('draw-fade' meter) anymore.
Another interesting detail visible on the last screenshot in the lower right corner of picture 10 (next to the wind direction and speed indicator) is the changing surface indicator for the current ball position--or aiming pole's position before the shot, respectively). It highlights not only the surface type of where you are aiming your shot, but also of where the ball has finally landed, including inside the hole itself!


What I also really like about "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" besides the '4-click Pro Swing Meter' is how easy and quickly a game is being set up with a streamlined and convenient to use menu system (even for a console simulation type of game), plenty of options for your own and competitor's golfer appearance, animation and skills, as well as three quite different golf courses with their own types of challenges.

The main downside (maybe not only for the Playstation One port of the game) is the lack of additional courses as expansions, which contribute to the popularity of the Links Golf series.


If I find the time, I would like to share some impressions and thoughts on each of the three available courses that arerecreations of actual real life ones and examplary holes.

See you!

Kind regards,
foxgog

Hello bluethief!

I really appreciate your kind words, thanks!
Luckily, this week is looking already much better for me.

Soon (TM), I am going to continue post here on my most recent gaming experiences both with "Pro 18 World Tour Golf" and the other two in the new thread for 2001.

Kind regards,
foxgog

First, the game itself is missing from the list. Referring to the original, I mean, which was released in 1999, not the remaster.

So, I should copy this here too: Finally finished King of Dragon Pass!
Got it in 2012, a few bad starts, had to give up, when I tried to push through I ended up with a complete failure in 2014, clan disbanded, tried again in 2015, going really badly and gave up, and been putting it on the to play list every year ever since, but only finally gave it another go this year, from July, and last night finally won (long game, I mean), had the Queen of Dragon Pass.

Yes, plenty of save scumming with the heroquests, otherwise it seems just about impossible, and a few other moments. Randomness is a pain, you can do the exact same thing and get opposite results, plus that the events that happen dictate much of what you can do and those can differ greatly as well.
Extraordinary on its artistic merits though, all the lore and how important it is to actually learn it (could be better written though), the pictures, the music, all of it so fitting, and also having your saga saved as text and accessible outside the game as well.

So here's mine as it put it in the final file: https://controlc.com/2f703e02

Sorry, I missed this completely.

Updated the OP with both the game on the list and as completed by you.

Well, the only one I completed after this was posted was KoDP, everything else I mentioned are games played long ago, so shouldn't be listed as played by me here, as part of the "challenge", otherwise everyone is likely to have darn long lists.

Sorry I must have misread and thought you completed all those games. I edited and now it only lists KoDP.

:)) Good one. KoDP is actually the only game I completed since this topic was posted. The previous completed game was The Purring Quest, on Oct 17, 2021 :/