I was hesitant to buy this without knowing which courses were included, as I know Access's Links series was released with only one or two courses included, and a wealth of other courses sold seperately. The description wasn't clear about that, but the screenshots suggested there were multiple courses included. I'm happy to report that the GOG release includes 18 courses, which is most but not all that were made available at the time. I assume some licensing troubles kept Cog Hill, Congressional, Oakland, Pelican Hill, Prairie, Valderrama, and Valhalla from inclusion. Besides the handful of missing courses that would have made this a complete collection, it is disappointing that they went with the "Pro" version rather than the superior Links 386 CD that included Flyby videos (which had also been in the Microsoft Golf deriviative products) and an option to include Bobcat Goldwait as your snarky caddie (which is a novelty I would recommend turning off after you've experienced it once). Why GOG went with the original release rather than the final iteration, I do not know. It's still an excellent selection of golf courses, and the simple mechanics remain enjoyable to play today. For me there's the added charm and nostalgia of revisiting the mid-90s Links series, which I first encountered with MS Golf 2.0 and an add-on disc of Riviera Country Club that my dad bought for our first PC. Back when Pentium was king.
A truely amazing gem that I can't believe I'd never heard of until it was a special on GOG. Toonstruck is part point-and-click adventure and part Saturday morning cartoon, mixing traditional animation with FMV, and it's crammed full of voice actors you'll recognize from '90s-era Warner Bros and syndicated cartoons. You play as a live-action working stiff played by Christopher Lloyd (of Back to the Future and Roger Rabbit fame) trapped in a cartoon world split into good and evil portions (plus a sorta ambiguous manic island). Tim Curry voices the main villain, who looks like something straight out of He-Man, while the other characters, scenery, and the classical soundtrack are clearly inspired by Warner and Disney. But don't be fooled into thinking this is kid's stuff... There's some adult humor and situations included, most notably a dominatrix farmyard animal. And there are plenty of pop culture references, from a bodybuilding dog that sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger to a Dalek-knockoff imitating the voice of Christopher Walken. Also... Ben Stein cameos in FMV. Why? Because it's the '90s! And it's a wonder this game exists at all. With a prolonged and over-budget development, a botched release (go find the original box art), and lots of cut material to be included in a sequel that never materialized, the game was a financial failure; the first of several for Burst Studios, a sister company of Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer), that later became Westwood Pacific under EA's ownership. The division ended up taking Westwood's flagship C&C series in a cartoony direction with Red Alert 2, often considered one of the high points in the series. But I digress... Toonstruck is a well-designed and under-appreciated classic that holds up surprisingly well (minus some occasional cringeworthy dialogue). It is a bit easier and shorter than the kind of point-and-click adventures LucasArts and Sierra were putting out around that time, but well worth a play-through.
