Mario Golf for Nintendo 64 Review

This game is rated on a scale of 0 to 4 stars, just like the movie ratings, so if you think that a rating of no stars is better than one of four stars, your name is probably Mario. Anyway...

The graphics are typical of a Mario game, with the characters looking much better than they did in Mario

Kart 64, but try to find fingers on some characters' hands. The trees, Koopa Shells, Bob-ombs, and all

that other background stuff is two-dimensional, or as I like to call it, cardboard. Still, the courses are very nice, and especially those ones in the final course, Mario’s Star.

This is something Mario games always excel in: the music and sound effects department. The music is great

for each course, and of course, the classic Mario music is for Mario’s Star. The sound effects are great, too, with the sounds of clapping, bouncing of the ball, and the ball landing in the hole. However, the sound loses a perfect rating for the voice of Metal Mario. What, Mario’s super-high voice for a man made out of metal with the most powerful swing in the game? Come on, they could have given him a Wario- or Waluigi- like voice. But not Mario’s, even if it’s supposed to be a form of Mario. The other characters’ voices are great.

Difficulty: ***1/2

The game starts out easy with the first three pretty easy courses. Then it gets hard. Really hard. And then

impossible. I’ll have more about these in the Course Mode section. The Get Character Mode is as hard as it

gets, because the A.I. can get nice shots on every shot after a while. The computer will even sometimes get chip-ins from 100 yards away to get an eagle you just worked really hard to get a birdie on. So, put it this way: you must have a lot, and I repeat, a lot of spare time to finally beat this game and completely conquer it. Or a Game Shark...

Characters: *1/2

Who the heck are Plum, Charlie, Sonny, Harry, and Maple? Well, the rest of the characters are classic Mario characters. A couple of new additions since Mario Kart 64 to the gang are Metal Mario (whose previous appearances include Super Mario 64 and Super Smash Bros.) and Baby Mario. Baby Mario is very annoying when he cries over a bogey. He can be cute, but... then there’s cute Yoshi, who even though has only average powe, has amazing accuracy that can actually beat the whole field on some courses (namely the first). The hidden characters are Maple, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Metal Mario. The way it works, instead of all the characters being equal, the hidden characters are the most powerful, or in Maple’s case, have the best accuracy, and then Mario and the ones on the right have more power than the ones on the left, so it basically gets more powerful from left to right. All the female characters have almost perfect accuracy. Then again, with no power whatsoever, by the time accuracy does matter, you’re already a stroke behind of the rest. Still, they can still score pretty low on certain courses (namely the first, again). They didn’t make all the characters even, unfortunately, so you just have to pick whoever’s the most powerful to do well, if you shoot right, that is.

This is probably the best mode in this game, because you can practice, play against friends, have your own

tournaments, and try out the characters to see which one does the best before going against computers. All

it is is get the lowest score and you win! Simple, huh? Well, not exactly. The first three courses are pretty easy. Toad Highlands offers several eagle opportunities for power shooters, lots of birdie chances (almost one on every hole), and par at worst on almost every hole. Koopa Park is about the same, though you’ll be settling for par much more often. Shy Guy Desert is where it first starts to get hard. The first hole is actually pretty tough, and Hole 17 is a doozy, the hole of sand traps and bunkers galore. Then you get to the hard ones. The Yoshi’s Island course has about three easy birdies, and the rest are either par or bogey holes. The Boo Valley course is worse, with the chance to go out of bounds with one bad swing, bringing your score sky-high. The Mario’s Star course is the worst, with only about one or two easy birdies. The courses are shaped like famous Mario characters, including Koopa Troopa, Thwomp, Chain Chomp, and Bob-omb. Why no Koopalings? One hole has you teeing off over a cliff, trying to get your ball to perfectly land between a sand trap and a water hazard. Others have fast greens worse then Pebble Beach, greens smaller than seven square yards, and sand traps and water hazards all about. There’s even the Bob-ombs' hole, shooting from island to island. Well, you get the point why it’s so hard by now. Still, you can choose to play front 9, or back 9, or all 18, or use handicaps, or place bets on each hole, and driving contests, and closest to pin contests, and Nassau, whatever that is. All these options make this mode the best!

This is just like Stroke Mode, only with one player. It’s just against unseen computer opponents, who

always start out really good, almost as good as Tiger Woods, then fall near the end, unlike Tiger Woods. Here’s the bad part: you can only play with characters you have unlocked from Get Character Mode. Ready to play with Plum, Charlie, Peach, and Baby Mario? I don’t think so. Go to Get Character Mode so you can

unlock some good characters for Tournament Mode (and all other one-player modes). Why the mediocre score? Well, because you have to play with poor characters. For course descriptions, see the Stroke Mode

description (above).

Get Character Mode: *

Here’s Get Character mode, also known as the A.I.’s Cheating to Get Better Scores Than Tiger Woods Mode. You must beat a computer with better power and aim than you on a 18-hole course to earn that character for one-player modes, including that semi-, all right, very important Tournament Mode! But why do you have to unlock the characters to play with them? You have such a small chance with the four you start with (Plum, Charlie, Peach, and Baby Mario) in the Tournament Mode AND in Get Character Mode! Not to

mention Ring Shot Mode (below)! These A.I. computer characters are programmed to cheat to be able to beat you. They know exactly how far and hard to hit the ball (choosing clubs and power perfectly), where to

hit it, how the wind, rain, and slope conditions will effect the ball, and how to get the ball to bounce perfectly and roll right in. They make those impossible putts and sometimes, after you make a hard birdie, come away with an absolutely impossible eagle, albatross, or hole-in-one! If you want to play a game of luck (which is what this mode practally is, with the constant computer cheating), why play for an hour an eighteen-hole course when you can just play for one minute in the Game Guy room in Mario Party 3? And lose, if you have my luck, of course!

Ring Shot Mode: **1/2

This was a good idea for a mode: to clear a hole, you must make it through all the rings and make par or

better, with only one power shot (unless you get a Nice Shot!). Of course, this includes shooting over water through three rings at once, finding a ring in a hide-and-go-seek course (well, actually only one hole), and shooting through a ring a mile over your head. If you make it through 30 holes, you unlock Donkey Kong! Some of you may hate him, but his power will make you love him. I actually like this mode- to a certain extent. I like winning on the first six holes and then failing miserably the rest of the way.

Match Play Mode: ***

This is two-player play for medals, won by whoever wins a hole. A tie either wins a medal for both or no medal for both, depending on whether the number of holes to go is even or odd (after the hole played). If

someone clinches a win, the game ends automatically. A tie in regulation brings up sudden death, with a win

on one hole being the Match Play clincher. This is a fun mode as long as the person you’re playing doesn’t

get scores of +5 and you get birdies.

Skins Game Mode: ***

This is a one-, two-, three-, or four-player mode. It is like Match Play only a tie carries over to the next hole. This means if Donkey Kong and Bowser get birdies while Mario and Peach get #5 on the same hole, Mario

can win both metals with the best score on the next hole. Of course, in this mode, a tie doesn’t get sudden death, because that would be way too confusing. I don’t like the fact that a loser can get lucky on a hole after two or three good players keep tying and then have a bad hole on that one the loser gets lucky on (and most of the time that is Mario). That’s my only complaint here.

Mini-Golf Mode: **1/2

This is like those Putt-Putt miniature golf courses you may have gone to before. Nothing fancy, just Par-3

putting practice on holes shaped like numbers or letters, or as the final one is, like a question mark, the hardest Mini-Golf hole of all. My complaint: Why not have Goombas or Koopa Troopas running across,

making obstacles, using the Koopas to make it harder and more interesting? They could have pipes to shoot

the ball into, Boos suddenly appearing to knock away the ball, and Monty Moles suddenly popping out of the

hole to knock the ball away. It’s more like professional golf than anything else, just shoot away! But this mode needed some spicing up for a better score. By the way, you can make the greens fast, normal, or slow, but believe me, you don’t want them fast or slow or anything but normal!

Practice Mode: ***1/2

This is a great mode if you want to practice one hole over and over and over again, or if you want to take

back that last shot. You can try for holes-in-one, or that elusive albatross. Or how about practicing driving on the Driving Range? You can make the ground like anything you want, make it rainy or clear, adjust the wind speed and direction, and adjust your clubs to see precisely how far a ball goes and where in each and every condition. You can also try for a hole-in-one on the Driving Range, which IS possible (I have done it once or twice) with Metal Mario using a power shot and perfect conditions. One complaint: You can’t save the film of a shot from this mode, but then again, it isn’t quite fair to try a hole and every stroke on a hole fifty times and finally get an albatross and have it in your Best Shots!

Club Slots Mode: 1/2

I almost forgot about this mode, probably because I never play it and never have played it, except for once or twice just playing the slots for fun. You let the slots decide which clubs you get to use! This is almost like letting Game Guy choose how many coins you get to keep! Impossible to get what you want! Well, really not impossible, but if you have bad luck like me, it is practically impossible!

This mode lets you view records and the movie films of your best shots, including birdies, eagles, albatrosses, and holes-in-one. It even lets you see Ring Shot movie films of five holes you should have

saved the movie film replay of. If, of course, you’re good enough to have made one Ring Shot hole. You can

also enter codes if you hold R, Z, and A (or something like that) when selecting Clubhouse, and you can enter codes to enter tournaments with pathetic characters like Plum to get another code, which doesn’t matter anyway, because it doesn’t fit in the Code Box, so it’s pointless.

Fun Factor!: ***1/2

You wouldn’t think golf can be fun, but this one is fun, especially if you’re trying for birdies and eagles, looking for that extremely rare albatross or hole-in-one, or trying to come away with an upset in a tournament. If you’re playing with friends, it makes this title exciting, although long, because you must

alternate turns.

Well, to say the least, this is a different game than some of those cheap PlayStation copy-offs. This one

has better graphics, better characters (!), and the whole Mario fun theme to it. This isn’t just people

dressing up in clothes that look worse than Jon Arbuckle’s clothes, but a whole bunch of Mario characters in a big ol’ golf shootout. This game is a real time-killer, and if you have no patience, this one ain’t for you, that’s for sure. But if you have the time to kill (especially during the summer heat or winter freeze) and want to kill Mario in golf, then I suggest you buy this game. By the way, this game is missing the Nail-Mario-With-Your-Golf-Club-Mode...(!)