Mario Golf: World Tour game review

Somewhere between an arcade game and a simulation, Mario Golf: World Tour lets you play on courses that sometimes look real and sometimes are inspired by Nintendo games. There’s even an underwater course called Cheep Cheep Lagoon.

MARIO GOLF: WORLD TOUR Gameplay: 8.2 Graphics: 7.9 Sound: 7.5 Replay Value: 8.9 Overall Score: 7.9Pros: Online mode; your favorite Nintendo characters; challenging play. Cons: Playing online can be confusing; should have a few more characters; extra content costs money.

The system can help you decide on the clubs to use and area to aim for. Or you can do it all manually.

Forget doing it yourself, at least for a while. Having the proper clubs chosen for you makes for a quicker, easier 18 holes.

Mario Golf offers online multiplayer functions and it really adds to the replayability of the game. You can also sign up for the various online world tournaments that Nintendo is putting together. When you win, you’ll get in-game prizes, not to mention bragging rights. It takes a while to download extra data before you can play, though. And finding another player in tournaments is kind of confusing.

Community Match is your best bet for a fast online experience, and you might get a new outfit to wear even if you don’t win.

Some online, and most offline, golf games can be a breeze to learn, but they’re hard to master. That’s because for the perfect shot you have to tap a growing circle exactly when it meets an outlined target circle. That’s actually tough to do.

In World Tour, you have 16 characters to choose from. Of course there’s Mario, Bowser and Peach. But you also get the MagiKoopa Kamek and Boo (my preferred character), who floats over the tee all ghostly with his sharp fangs and rude open mouth.

You can buy downloadable content which features new courses and characters. Thing is, you’ve just paid money for the main game. And the character who hawks the content is kind of pushy. He whines when you decide not to buy. Guilting is not a good way to deal with game fans, that’s for sure.

Overall, I’d say World Tour is a fine game, and it definitely has its joys, including online play.