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How long do people think the N64 has left to live?
With games like Perfect Dark, Zelda: The Continuing Sage, Turok 3, A Resident Evil game, Top Gear Rally 2, and a bunch of other wicked games this year. How long will the N64 live for? Specially with the PS2 and Dolphin on the horizon how much longer can the N64 last?
Cooky
don't care what Tiger and David Duvall are doing on the 18th hole. No matter how much Nike or the PGA try to sell it.
When I want to physically play a sport, I play basketball, and when I can't get outside to play, I gladly pop in a b-ball game and play the sport from the comfort of my couch. This works with all the other major sports but not golf. I never had any interest playing a game with so little action. How could I get excited about a game where you hit a ball essentially off into the distance and pray it lands somewhere near the hole? After one good swing, you hop into a cart or walk to find the ball and do it over again. Why would anyone do that? And what about those viewers in the "gallery" getting all stoked about a putt? The only golf I ever wanted to play was miniature golf and if ever there was a golf game on and a pool game was on another channel, I'd watch pool. Not that pool is that much more exciting to watch but it's the cooler of the two. I think a lot of console
players are like that. They want a bigger score, more flash and excitement, and golf just doesn't offer that, especially on a console. At least until now.
The one success on consoles was Hot Shots Golf. It was released on the PlayStation a while back and got warm reviews, but with its cartoonish look and the lack of recognizable characters, the public never took to it. Nintendo must have taken notice because when they wanted a golf game of their own, they went straight to Camelot and straight to their most marketable property: Mario. Well the draw worked as I happily picked it up and am proud to proclaim that this is THE game for golf lovers and THE game for Mario fans.
Mario Golf (MG) is such a surprise that I feared I couldn't write this review and do it justice. What could I say to describe how easy the game is to play? How can I convey that all the intricacies of lining up a shot are included and not overwhelming like in other games? How can I
describe how they've knocked off the stigma associated with golf and made a great experience unlike any other? Maybe it was the familiar Mario Brothers mascots or maybe it was just the experience of a developer like Camelot, but I felt at home in this game. Control was a breeze and even with the option to control topspin, direction, and hitting power, it all made sense. I picked up things like bogeys and shooting for par faster in this game than I ever did before. Things like wind direction and a player's level of "draw" were considerations on every shot and I reveled in balancing all the minutia of the game and win every hole.
While Camelot made the perfect single-player game, they knew that straight golf would lose its appeal among gamers so they offered other modes of play. The most notable are the "skins match" where the players battle for stars and the surprise miniature golf game included. Little bonuses are added too like the ability to taunt while a friend is setting up his shot and contest where you try to match each other's shots. These are totally gamer oriented additions that purposely take away the simulation feel of the game but that's not to its detriment because it's all about fun anyway. The only slight in the game is the lack of a multi-player tournament mode. That's an
unfortunate oversight but it's not a major problem and certainly doesn't ruin the whole playing experience.
MG is a trip and simply the best console golf game ever made. It's laden with all kinds of options from tournaments to miniature golf levels to keep players busy. It's a clear result of Camelot wanting to offer the most enjoyment possible with this sport and they succeeded in making even a hater of the sport like me have fun playing. Everything is easy to get into, offering a lot for the player to do and making it fun to do at the same time. That's pretty basic, and it's what developers should be trying to do with all of their games. And here, Camelot got it right from the beginning and I, for one, am happy to say it's made a fan out of me.
Mario Bros: Mario and Luigi jump on creatures coming out of pipes.
Super Mario Bros(NES): Classic scrolling platformer, jump on creatures, go dowm pipes and throw fireballs. Also Bowser first appears.
Super Mario Bros 2(NES): Play as either Mario, Luigi, Princess, or Toad, in this rather weird follow up.
Super Mario Bros 3(NES): Huge game, so many levels. Significantly improved gameplay from the original SMB, and Mario could also fly in this one. We also got to see some of Bowser's children
SuperMarioLand(GB) An improvement on the original SMB for the Gameboy.
SuperMarioLand2(GB) More like the SNES Mario games in style.
SuperMarioWorld(SNES): 96 levels, many secrets. (Those Ghost houses, with multiple exits!) Introduction of Yoshi!
Mario64(N64): Mario in 3D. Awesome gameplay. Challenge of getting all the stars!
MarioKart(SNES/N64):Well you can hardly fault this.
I haven't played Mario Golf, or Mario Tennis (Or Mario Party for that matter) but I don't see what's wrong in using an icon like Mario to enhance the image for a game. Especially if the game itself is any good!