Mario Golf

"It may be golf, but it's great fun (and I'm not saying that just 'cos it's Mario)"

First, Mario had trouble with a large monkey who kept kidnapping his girlfriend. Beating up Bowser mutiple times to save his girlfriend again followed. Then he tried kart racing, the medical profession, partying and beating up fellow Nintendo characters. And of course, this leads him nicely on to a round of golf.

Obviously there is no story to this game. Lots of the Mario characters (not the all-star line up of Smash bros, hey, but Samus playing golf... maybe for the sequel) and a couple of anonymous people tee up for a couple of rounds of golf.

First off, the controls are simple, using the 3 click powerbar method that's been around since the beginning of time. You can use the Z button and the analog to put spin on the ball, and you have 6 power shots to use over 18 holes. The characters are just the Mario characters (with the exception of Toad, who has been given the title of waving the out of bounds flag, because everyone hates him) and some normal human characters. There are 6 courses, unlocked by earning course points by playing the tournament mode. Here are the courses:

Toad Highlands Bog standard, grassy, with trees. Still fun to play.

Koopa Park Another ''ordinary'' course. Shells scattered around.

Shy guy Desert My least favorite course. Very sandy. Pyramids.

Yoshi's Island Quite normal, but very pretty. My favorite course.

Boo valley Very hard. Fairways are very thin, you can easily hit off the course and into the aybss.

Mario's Star All the fairways are in the shape of classic Mario characters. Also very hard, as the greens are minute.

At first you will mostly play tournement mode. Later, you'll start to play get character mode, where you must beat a CPU golfer so you can play as him.
Then you might try the excellent ring shot mode, where you must hit the ball through all the rings and make par.
Theres also the mini golf game, which is a bit boring, some ramps might have spiced it up. Speed golf is also a fun mode, where all you try to do is speed through the course.

The multiplayer is great fun. You can bet on things like best drive, or just play with a few random clubs (hard, but fun). The multiplayer also lets you play with characters you haven't got unlocked in get character (not DK, Bowser, Metal mario and Maple though, they must be won in one player first).

The graphics are fine. The courses are pretty, but each hole floats in mid air, which is a bit lazy. The trees and other obstecles are rather ugly sprites, but this must be due to limitions of the N64. It's never hard to see ahead of you or anything, and theres no fog. The graphics are good, just nothing special. The characters are pretty, although Bowser seems to have been putting away the pies since Mario 64.

The faults with this game is mainly the get character mode. At first it's pretty easy, but later on it gets nigh on impossible, with the CPU getting eagles and chip-ins galore, with a par being an awful score. The only way to get them is to ''cheat''. It's not really cheating, all you do is if your going to lose a hole, you save and quit, and you can start the hole again. It's still very hard to get all the characters with this, as they can sometimes get a sneaky chip in and you are unable to quit. It is also the only way to get all 108 birdie badges and get Metal Mario.
Also, the normal characters annoy me slightly. In the middle of the game, you'll be playing these boring normal people, as they are the best golfers you've unlocked.

All in all, this is a great game. I'm not just saying it because it's Mario, as for most of the game, I was playing with the normal characters. The lifespan is pratically infinite, even after you've got all the characters and have finished ring shot, you'll want to play tournment, speed golf and the multiplayer over and over again. If you like golf, buy. If you don't like golf (like me), then give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/00, Updated 02/06/00