Mario Golf Advance Tour - Portable golf goodness!

In the Beginning

Ok, so I admit it.. I actually liked Mario Golf for the old spinach green gameboy, and that was a good portion of what influenced my decision to purchase this newest installment, and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised.

Story-ho!

You are on a quest to become the greatest golfer in the world. Now, while this may not sound like all the much of a storyline, it's still enough to justify the "Golf-RPG" label that is applied to this gem of a game. As you golf and either win or lose, you gain experience that allows you to improve your characters statistics, and turn them into a powerhouse of a golfer. If you manage to become good enough, you are invited to the Mushroom Kingdom to compete in the ultimate golf tournament against the likes of Mario himself.

Ok.. I admit that this isn't really enough of a story to justify an entire section to itself, but there really isn't any more to it than that... Get out there and golf!

Gameplay

Purists of Toadstool Tour for the Gamecube will be quick to see the similarities in the control scheme in this version. You are presented with a vaguely overhead view of the hole you are golfing with the line your ball will travel on presented to you. Through the use of the shoulder buttons and the directional pad you can choose where the ball will go, how far, and what club to use at the time. Tap A once to get back to your character, and you are faced with a choice. Auto or Manual swing. Auto swing is precisely that. All you do is stop the bar at the bottom when it reaches the power you want with a single tap of the A button. Your character then smacks the ball, with a small degree of variation in accuracy, and you continue on. If you decide to go manual, you start your swing with A, choose your power with B, and when the cursor comes back to it's starting point, you hit a combination of buttons to give you greater control over the ball. AA is topspin, AB is super topspin, BB for backspin, and BA for super backspin. These allow you to place a ball on the green and have it roll to (or past) the pin, and generally give you a far greater degree of control than the Auto Shot does. Couple this with the ability to choose where you hit on the ball, and to intentionally (or perhaps unintentionally depending on your timing) hit with a slice or a hook, and you have the grounds for an excellent golf game.

Putting is where the game loses some of it's shine however. The lie of the green is indicated by a series of arrows showing the direction of slope, but for the vast majority of holes, there is never more than a slight correction needed in the line of your putt. However, watch out for the greens when it is raining! In the Toadstool tour, the big hazard was the trees, as it was very, very easy to hit a leafy branch and have your shot go astray. Not so in advance tour. Hitting a tree is almost impossible unless you aim for one, but rain has a phenomenal impact on your putting. If you putt on a wet green, use at least half or 75% again the amount of power you would normally putt with. If you don't your ball simply won't get where you want it too. Rain or molasses? You make the call.

If you manage to win a few trophies in the single player mode, you will open up more and more courses to play on, and such peculiar games as club slots (you run a slot machine for a set of clubs, and then play a round with just those) or near pin (the closer you get to the pin in a single stroke, the better), and you can earn yourself tickets which can be traded in for more powerful or accurate clubs for your player character.

But don't think it ends here! There is a doubles tournament to compete in as well, and while your partner is... well... terrible at the start, if you donate some of your hard earned experience to her, she'll start to improve! The be all, end all of course is to compete in and win the coveted Mushroom cup and the respect of all the golfers in the game.

Finally, you can compete in singles and doubles match play and tournaments outside of the boundaries of the story, and win even more valuable experience for your two golfers.

This game really is an excellent one to take with you on your game boy advance. There is the ability to save at the start of each shot you take, so you can always play a single hole while waiting in line, or do a cup while waiting for a movie to start. This flexibility in play is an excellent feature, and well used in a golf game.

On a final note here, this game is rated E for everyone. There is no violence of any kind, nor anything else that would damage a young mind in any way :) Just good clean fun for the whole family, something that seems to be increasingly rare in the world of videogames.

The Technical Goodies

For the love of all that is Holy, play with the backlighting on. It is nearly impossible to see where the ball is going to end up if you don't and this makes for some miserable shots, and even more miserable rounds while you're playing. Graphically, once you get around the lighting issue, the game is really not all that special. Anyone who has played the game Golden Sun will see hints of the art style favoured by Camelot Studios, but while you are in the game, there is really no need for fancy graphics. All you need is the layout of the hole, a representation of the ball, and you're set :) If you want better graphics, perhaps the gameboy is not the best place to start looking. What Advance Tour has in this department works, and that's all that really matters.

Soundwise there is nothing to distinguish this game or set it apart from any other. The music is bland and repetitive, the sound effect are dull, and it is easier to play the game with the sound turned off (easier on the batteries too) than to leave it on, and monkey around with the music when you get to courses you don't really like. Listen to each song once, then you can choose to leave them on or turn them off.. no real loss either way.

Friends? What Friends?

Multiplayer mode offers little in terms of new additions to the game, but if you have a friend who also has the game, it's fun to go head to head and see who is the better golfer. And better yet, if you have both the Gamecube and the GBA versions (or know someone who does) you can transfer data from the Gamecube and unlock extra courses in the GBA version... a rather dismal way to flog off connectivity, but at least to an extent, it works :)

The Final Word

Fine.. fine.. I admit it.. I play this game, far, far, far too much, but it's soooo easy to just pick it up and play 4 holes while your computer is mulling something over, or play a course while waiting in line somewhere. This is by far one of the easiest to play and cheapest offerings for a decent handheld golf experience, and I highly recommend it if you like golf games in any way, shape or form!