While Mario appeared in NES Golf, this is the first gold game named after him.

Original N64europe Review

Let me start off by telling you that I'm not really a Tiger Woods. Both my parents play golf every week, but I think of this sport like most teenagers do, namely it's just for people who've got nothing better to do and don't want to get too exhausted. So I wasn't really excited about playing Mario Golf, but I found out that golf can actually be quite a cool game.

Mario Golf has been developed by Camelot, the company behind the topselling golf-game Hot Shots Golf (PSX). When you play the game you really notice that it's been created by people with experience, because it really plays like a professional title, while it's still a fun Mario-game. The game features some very popular Nintendo characters, and some unknown new characters. There is of course Mario, one of the best players, and Luigi, who's quite ok, but not as good as his brother. For the beginners there is Plum, an easy to control chick, but she doesn't hit the ball very far. My personal favourite is Wario, just because he kicks ass when he's playing golf, listen to the things he says and you'll know what I mean. On the whole there are 13 playable characters, in the beginning you can choose four of them in one-player mode, and ten in multiplayer. You can 'earn' the rest by beating them in 'Get Character'. Mario Golf is also compatable with the N64 Transfer Pak, with this add-on you can load four characters from the GameBoy-version of Mario Golf in your game. Very cool.

There are a lot of modes to play, if you play on your own you can do:

Tournament make sure you hit the most 'Birdies' (one below Par, average) and win Get Character beat your 'hidden' opponent and you'll be able to select him too as a character Ring Shot shoot the ball through the rings Speed Golf beat the course as soon as possible Training practice the courses In multiplayer you can also select from the following options: Stroke challenge your friends or the computer Mini-Golf speaks for itself. You can also do this in one player Match Game the one who wins a hole gets points, the one with the most points wins the game Skins Match like Match Game, except you don't stop when one of the players can't win anymore Club Slots Like Skins Match, but the slots decide which three clubs you can use for a hole By collecting loads of points you can get to a next course. Unfortunately, I think you need to gain a bit too many points, so you'll be playing the same course over and over again (at the beginning you can only select one course). On the other hand this means that the lastabillity of this game will be much longer. There are 6 different courses.

So now you know a little about all the features, let's see what the game is really about. When you play a match, the computer selects the best stick for you automatically. You may think this is stupid, but it's very usefull, especially for unexperienced players. At the bottom of the screen there's a horizontal bar with a small block in it. If you press the A-button, the block starts moving to the left, and if you press again it stops. If you stop it at the right point you get a far stroke. Then it moves to the right again, and you have to stop it at a certain point to hit the ball accurately. Pretty easy. The graphics are very good, Mario Golf is just a fun, cartoonistic game and not a realistic one, but even in those happy environments it looks pretty realistic, with good details. The camera follows the ball clearly, which is really a must with games like this. The background music is what you'd expect from a game like this, just easy tunes. A really fun thing is that you can make your character say certain lines when you opponent is playing, and that can be pretty annoying for him. Especially Wario has some cool lines, like 'Hurry Up, will ya?' or 'One, two, three fooooorrrreee' ('fore' is a golf term, it means that the ball is coming your way).

On the overall I think Mario Golf is a great game. It's not only good for golffans, but also for people who just like to play a nice fun game. This is one of those games you'll be playing forever, just because it's so much fun.

- By Gerben Stavast