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Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour Review - Gamecube

For years now, the game of golf has been hugely popular worldwide. Sparking many tournaments across the globe, it was only natural that golf became a common sight on a video game console. However, in the last year or so of the N64's life, Mario Golf 64 was released and proved an instant hit. With the memories of the past Mario Golf behind them, Nintendo fans of all sorts have since wished that Nintendo and Camelot would develop a new and improved version. Their wishes came true with the announcement, shortly before the GameCube's release, that there indeed was a new version in the making. Two years came and went and finally, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour was released.

Gameplay

In single-player mode, players are given a variety of modes which have different objectives. They are:

• Tournament mode: where you play a usual game of golf against an opponent. This mode also unlocks different courses and characters for you to use and is considered as the main mode of play for single players;
• Side Games: where you play mini-games of golf;
• Near Pin: where you have to take all your skills into the objective of hitting your golf ball closest to the pin in order to win;
• Speed Golf: where you must complete a certain amount of holes faster than your opponent;
• Coin Attack: where you must aim and hit your golf ball in the air to collect as many coins as possible;
• Ring Attack: where you hit your golf ball through a vast selection of rings for points;
• Club Shots: where you are given a selected number of different clubs to use on a golf course;
• Stroke Play: where you play an ordinary game of golf and the person with the least amount of strokes wins;
• Character Match: where you select a character and his/her nemesis will verse you.

Like its N64 counterpart, Toadstool Tour has a very simple control system that is by all means solid and should suit anyone who's into golf. Although this time round, Camelot has made a new way of hitting the ball making it harder and adds more challenge for gamers. In the N64 version and this version, players have an automatic putting system which requires you to just give your hit its power and distance. But in Toadstool Tour, there is now a manual feature which offers you a better more in-depth golf experience. When playing manually, you not only give the power and distance but you also will give the angles and style of the hit you want. Also, you will obviously need to position your character's location in front of the ball to make sure you aim for the right place and not a sandpit. This however, does have some trouble with the camera. Like Super Mario Sunshine, your camera will often get stuck between obstacles such as trees and your player. Fortunately, this is only a minor problem and there are ways around it enabling you to still get that certain spot on the green you want.

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