Mario Golf

"I usually don't like golf games...but this is just so addicting!"

I'm not the biggest golf fan, and at first, I wasn't too interested in Mario Golf, but I decided to give it a go, as it did get some pretty good reviews. And it was quite addicting when I first played it...but after a while, I didn't really bother to play it as much anymore. But recently, I dusted off my copy of Mario Golf and gave it another go. Then, it hit me again, and I was hooked. And now, after going through numerous holes, getting Birdies along the way, I've decided to take off some of my valuable time to write a review. Be grateful!

Gameplay
Since golf has a large variety of even the littlest things, it is often difficult to translate it into a whole video game. Mario Golf, however, has an excellent system that makes the control so simple and easy to do. And not to mention that the course designs for the holes were superb. These things actually made this game a whole lot better, and gave a great feel to it.

Now, where to start? There is a bar on the bottom of the screen, and that is what you use. The bar starts filling up at the right side of the bar, then it moves to the left side, then back to the right. What you need to do, is stop the bar at the right place. Simply, the left side is used for the power of the shot, and the right side is used for how straight the club hits the ball. When it moves to the left side, the closer to the end of the bar it goes, the harder your shot will be. When your bar moves towards the right side, there is a small area under a bolded bar that is underlined, you need to stop the bar within the underlined area, and as close to the bolded bar as possible. The closer it goes, the better/harder the club will hit the ball. There are a few other things that can help you make shots as well. First, much like real golf, you have a wide variety of golf clubs to use, each hits the ball a different distance. The game automatically takes you to the club you should use for the position you are in, but you can change the clubs right before you make the shot. Instead of pressing the control stick to the side to change your aim, you can push the control stick up and down to alternate between clubs. As you can see, the control is very solid for a golf game.

There are quite a few modes you can play in this game. Let me start by saying that this is a 1-to-4 player game, so you can go multiplayer against your buddies. Of course, since it is a slow, concentrating golf game, it probably won't be your best multiplayer game in your collection. But in one player, you have a few different modes of play. In the ''Tournament'' mode you play a singles game of golf, then after the hole, you are compared with all of the other golfers on a scoreboard, much like any televised golf game. To earn new golf courses, you must get as the required Experience Points to move on. This can be done by getting through tournaments, winning trophies, etc. The other two notably fun ones are the ''Get a Character'' mode, in which you play one-on-one with a new character that you can’t originally use, if you beat him, you can use him. The other fun one is the ''Mini-Golf'' round. This is like a miniature golf game. It is all putting, and you try to get it into the hole. There is also the standard scorecard round, and a few others. You can even transfer your character from the GBC version of Mario Golf, where you can get your character more experience for him/herself and even deposit some of his/her experience to the game! That's a very nifty feature if you have that game. So, there are many fun modes and features of play for one player, as with multiplayer.

As if I haven't mentioned before, this game is very addictive. You can play through a full round of golf and not even notice. It's another one of those games, and is very fun to play.

Graphics
Camelot did a very odd thing with the graphics. The actual golf portion of the game (courses, textures, etc.) is excellent. Not to mention the fact that the green looks like a green, the fairway looks like a fairway, the semi-rough looks like a semi-rough, and so on. One of the best parts of this (although it is often overlooked) is the close-up view of where the ball lands. It doesn't just think ''rough'' and give you a pre-rendered sprite of a ball on the rough. It shows you the actual ball you just hit. For example, if you land right between a bunker and the rough, you'll see a slightly green, slightly sand-colored ground...very nice! But the odd part of the graphics is that Camelot decided to combine beautiful golf elements with wretched polygonal characters. Donkey Kong looks even worse than he ever was on Mario Party...he looks more like a lego-man than a gorilla. Even the animation seems rather choppy on the characters. Fortunately, though, this is actually a minor aspect of the overall game, so the score doesn't suffer too much.

Sound
The sound is everything it should be in a golf game: bright, sunny, and...fun. The music itself is good, but it doesn't really droll along in the background, nor does it make you hum the tune, breaking your concentration. Camelot did a great job with this. The sound effects themselves are just about perfect, be it a ball clunking off the bottom of the cup, or the club connecting for a ''Nice Shot''. The sound feature was even boosted with the presence of ''Taunt'' buttons, in which players who are not playing can make noises to try and mess up the one golfing. This great idea was later used by Hudson Soft in Mario Party 2 & 3...though it isn't nearly as good (or accurate) as it is in this game.

Replay Value
Completing all of the Ring Shot challenges, getting all of the Birdie Badges, earning every secret character and every golf course, and the ability to transfer your Mario Golf GBC character (with the help of the Transfer Pak)...with so much variety, you probably won't get sick of this that quickly. Not to mention the fact that this game is very, very addicting for the most part.

The Bottom Line...
If one word describes this game, it's this -- addicting. This is the kind of game where you just want to keep playing. It is, of course, not tediously addictive, like Tetris can be, but there is a lot of variety -- nearly as much as Mario Party. Not only is this one of the best-known golf games of today, but this is possibly the best sports game on the Nintendo 64 (yes, better than Mario Tennis). Even if you absolutely hate golf, and its games, you should still reconsider purchasing Mario Golf.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/01, Updated 08/22/01