GameCube

Mario Power Tennis

You can't fault Nintendo for milking a franchise as good as this one, especially since gamers can play the game straight or all tricked out with goofy Nintendo-esque funkiness, which elevates the playability above Microsoft's Top Spin for the Xbox (although you can't play MPT online). It's a fun romp through the courts of the Mushroom Kingdom one more time. I'd say buy it, but the ball's in your court.

Mario Power Tennis ist ein erstklassiges Spiel, das den Charme des N64-Vorgängers perfekt einfängt. Die Power Shots hätte man sich zwar für meinen Geschmack auch sparen können, allerdings kann man diese ja abschalten. Dank der eingängigen Steuerung ist der Titel auch für Anfänger geeignet.

Mario Power Tennis is a fantastic example of Nintendo in top form. Here's an offering with brightly colored visuals and cheery music. It is, in a word, adorable. But under this gingerbread exterior lies a deep and challenging game of tennis. It certainly takes some liberties with the sport--because the last time we checked, you weren't allowed to bring giant hammers or jetpacks onto the court--but these twists definitely keep things interesting and are intrinsic to the goofy, character-driven style of the Mario name. No matter how you look at it, though, this is hands down the single best GameCube tennis offering, and it's also one of the most enjoyable tennis video games around.

Ceux qui n'ont pas oublié leurs parties passées sur Mario Tennis 64 seront surpris de voir comment cet épisode GameCube parvient à renouveler la série à partir d'idées de gameplay vraiment originales. Les parties sont aussi intéressantes que fun à jouer, même en solo, et les challenges sont agréablement diversifiés.

In many ways, Mario Power Tennis exemplifies the things that Nintendo does better than any company in video games. It’s got a great graphical look – the screen is packed with bright colors, clever animations, and amazing particle effects. As usual, Nintendo’s most popular and lesser-known characters are available for play, featuring everybody from heavy hitters like Mario and Peach to more obscure heroes like Bowser Jr. and Wiggler. More importantly, the game offers up that finely tuned gameplay that has been a trademark of the company’s best games for years.

So in a way, it's much like the game of tennis itself. There's no reason why hitting a ball back and forth until somebody drops it should be much fun, but it sure is. And Camelot's finessed, perfected tennis engine means that Mario Power Tennis -- for all its bizarre features and explosive moves -- is one of the best choices for tennis buffs on the market today.

Four years ago Nintendo teamed up with development studio Camelot Software Planning to make Mario Tennis 64, a colorful and engaging take on the popular sport. Mario Tennis 64 served gamers a fast, intuitive back-and-forth experience topped off with a wide selection of classic Nintendo mascots. Not only was it an excellent multiplayer affair, it was one of the best tennis videogames to release last generation, period. Mario Power Tennis for GameCube is an extension of the first. In some ways, that's all it is.

Next to jumping on the many enemies in the Mario-platform games, our friendly, fat, plumber also does some sport. Think Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and new also the latest new branch in the sport series, Mario Power Tennis. The latter is the subject of this review. The Nintendo64 version got high scores and the expectations for this part were therefore very high.

You have to hand it to Mario and Co. – they do what they do very well, even if they don’t exactly take big risks. Mario Power Tennis is a reliable, fun game that puts some nice, new spin on an old sport. If you can look past its limited depth, you’ll have a ball.

As slick as Mario Power Tennis is from a gameplay standpoint, there are a few “faults” in the overall package. For starters, the character selection could have benefited from more of Nintendo’s franchises, and the voices are weak. Mario still sounds like he’s been kicked in the meatballs. It’s also a little disappointing that there’s no stat tracking or custom profile feature for competitive-minded players. The lack of a true career mode or create-a-player feature is also a letdown, as is the inability to acquire additional special moves or to put points into improving a character’s core abilities. Of course, the focus of Mario Power Tennis is fun, and it delivers that in spades. If you’re in the mood for some wacky solo tennis or are craving multiplayer mayhem, you’ll find Mario Power Tennis serves up nothing but aces.

We could take this opportunity to strut up and down ranting with self-righteous indignation about the stagnation of Nintendo's first-party line-up and the amount of repackaging and sideways steps that seem to belie its newfound "Revolutionary" principles. But as long as the games are still this entertaining, and do enough to keep us satisfied, we'll be happy to play them. So we're not going to. Besides, that'd be a bit too grown-up.

Though Mario Power Tennis is quite different from the previous version, it's a superior product in almost every way. It's based on excellent gameplay mechanics that are taken in really interesting directions through gimmick courts. Mastering each player will take dozens and dozens of hours. Multiplayer games are a total riot. Though it doesn't look or sound as good as other games on the market, there's no denying the sheer amount of fun this game offers … even if Camelot ruined Shy Guy for me.

It's not fair to call Mario Power Tennis a sports game. Sure, it's got a solid tennis game engine, but it comes hustling onto the court with the full complement of Nintendo's wild and wacky Mario legacy to back it up. No contest.

Finally, I have to say that I enjoyed the game, but I do not know if I would recommend buying it for 50 bucks. If you were a big fan of the first game and love tennis games, I would say go for it, but it lacks the depth of Smash Bros. Melee when it comes to extras, coming closer to what Mario Golf or Double Dash had instead. It makes a really good party game and an excellent rental, but I don’t think it’s worth buying until it becomes a player’s choice title.

This is a great rental title; you will certainly get your money’s worth from renting it. Mario Power Tennis is also a solid purchase, if the price was $20 or so. Mario Power Tennis certainly has a lot going for it, but there are several factors that keep it from being truly enjoyable, most notably the lack of a decent doubles mode, the problematic Power shot, and the poor menu navigation. Yup, you’re better off saving your money on this one.

Mario Power Tennis has a tournament mode that lets you climb the ranks, but it inexplicably prompts you to "delete your game" after each tournament, which makes no sense at all. Also included are "gimmick master" tournaments featuring contraption-laden courts that change on the fly. These look great and add variety, but the gimmicks (such as sliding floor panels) are distracting at best and annoying at worst. A selection of mini-games is also included in the package, with highlights that include playing against an octopus or taking shots at ghosts in the windows of a haunted house. The games that require you to reconfigure mazes or paint pictures are just a headache. Mario Power Tennis was never produced in large quantities and can be hard to find. Perhaps Nintendo realized the game wasn't quite up to their usual high standards.