Power Golf

The PC Engine reached the market as a small console with surprisingly capable graphics, and Hudson Soft, which co-created the machine, supplied software for it from day one. Power Golf, from 1989, is one of those practical releases a young platform needs to look like a complete library: golf, playable solo or with company, presented from a side view at the swing.

Golf games of this era rest on a single interface element — the power meter. Press once and a marker sweeps along a scale, press again to set strength, press a third time to set accuracy. All the skill compresses into two well-timed stops, which is elegant precisely because it is so simple, and unforgiving enough that a rushed second press costs you a stroke. Around that sit club selection, reading the wind, and judging the slope of the green when putting.

What the PC Engine contributed was a colour range its contemporaries could not match and clean, readable sprites. Golf never taxes hardware, but it is exactly where image clarity matters: if you cannot judge terrain from the picture, the game becomes guesswork.

Multiplayer works by passing turns, which suits a single console and a room of people — half the entertainment is commentary on everyone else's approach shots.

On OldGame.cz it runs directly in the browser, so trying a few holes costs nothing but a few minutes. It has aged the way period golf games generally do: slowly but honestly. The controls read instantly, and nobody has since found a reason to change the fundamental swing mechanic it uses.