Hot Shots Golf 3

Three presses of the X button. That is the entire swing: start the meter, stop it for power, stop it again on the impact line. Clap Hanz had been refining that idea since the PS1, and by the third entry the studio understood exactly how much tension could be wrung out of two-tenths of a second. Miss the impact mark by a hair and the ball leaks right into the trees. There is no analogue stick flourish, no complicated grip system, and the game is better for the restraint.

What sits on top of that swing is a progression loop that owes more to a fighting game's roster unlock than to a sports sim. Rivals appear as challenges, and beating one under its stated conditions adds that character to your stable, each with a distinct power curve, shot shape and impact-zone width. The stubby kids drive short and straight; the big hitters give you distance and punish sloppy timing. Caddies work the same way, folding into a collection habit that keeps you replaying courses you have already cleared.

The presentation is deliberately unserious - chunky cel-shaded figures, exaggerated celebration animations, courses in bright primary colours - and that cartoon surface hides how exacting the underlying game is. Wind, lie, elevation and green slope all matter, and the read on a long putt is genuinely difficult without studying the grid. It plays like an arcade game and scores like a simulation, which is the trick the series has always pulled and rarely gets credit for.

Its weaknesses are the ones you would expect from an early PS2 sports title. Load times between holes are longer than the action they interrupt, the course count is modest by later standards, and there is no online play at all - that arrived with the follow-up. Local multiplayer is where the game comes alive, passing a pad around a room, groaning at a shanked approach.

Sony's golf franchise never chased Tiger Woods on licensing or realism, and this entry is the clearest statement of why it did not need to. The swing is legible in ten seconds and still slippery after ten hours, which is the rarest thing a sports game can offer.