STACK #164 June 2018

GAMES

FEATURE

MARIO TENNIS ACES' playable characters

In addition toTennis, Mario himself has dabbled in a few other sports genres in his time.When he’s not off saving the princess, of course. Mario Sports Games

Golf Mario’s foray into golf began with NES Open Tournament Golf in 1987 on – you guessed it – the Nintendo Entertainment system. That was followed with Mario Golf on the N64 in 1999, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the GameCube in 2003, Mario Golf: Advance Tour on the GameBoy Advance in 2004, and Mario Golf: World Tour for the 3DS in 2014. These games, like most Tennis entries, were developed by Camelot Software Planning, and some even featured online multiplayer. Mario Kart The Mario Kart series includes eight main Mario Kart games on all Nintendo home consoles since the Super Nintendo, with a few arcade and mobile games thrown in. The series has sold over one million copies to date worldwide. The game allows you to race around a number of different tracks as one of many playable Mario characters, sometimes even with their own customised karts. Power-ups can be found around the track that give you an advantage over those in the field.

Baseball Mario has played baseball twice in his long and illustrious sporting career – once in Mario Superstar Baseball for the GameCube in 2005, and again in Mario Super Sluggers on the Wii in 2008. Developed by Bandai Namco, the games were relatively well-received, however Mario Super Sluggers was never released in Europe or Australia. Soccer The Italian plumber also dabbled in soccer – or football, whatever you want to call it – for a time. Super Mario Strikers released in 2005 for the GameCube, and two years later, the Wii got Mario Strikers Charged Football . Again, you’re playing as Mario characters on differently themed pitches, and can use powerups to get the upper hand over your enemy. Olympics Mario and friends have had a number of forays into the Olympics, where he faced off in an unprecedented match-up with arch rival Sonic the Hedgehog. He went to the Olympics in 2007, 2012, and 2016, and the Winter Olympics in 2009 and 2014. These entries allow players to take part in a number of track and field events that differ depending on the season.

Mario Luigi Wario Waluigi Peach Daisy Rosalina Toad

Toadette Bowser Bowser Jr. Boo Yoshi Donkey Kong Spike Chain Chomp Birdo Diddy Kong Koopa Paratroopa

Other games Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix

In 2005, Konami developed a music video game called Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix for the GameCube. It came bundled with a dance pad controller, and is essentially a DDR game with Mario music and characters. To give you an idea of what you missed out on if you didn’t play it, some of the songs were called Moustache, Barrel, and Gorilla, and Up, Down, Left, Right. Mario Hoops 3-on-3 Mario Hoops 3-on-3 was a basketball game released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS. The story mode was a bunch of 3-on-3 tournaments, and the final battle is against a trio of Final Fantasy characters – because the game was developed by Square Enix. You could dunk and do other fancy tricks, and your score depended on how many coins you picked up before you shot. Mario Sports Mix In Mario Sports Mix – released for the Wii in 2011 – you could enjoy one of four sports as Mario and pals; volleyball, hockey, dodgeball and basketball. Once again developed by Square Enix, you can expect more cameos of characters from their IP. Mario Sports Superstars

+ more!

Most recently, Mario Sports Superstars released for the Nintendo 3DS last year. It was the first Mario game to feature horse racing, but also included soccer, baseball, tennis, and golf – a kind of an amalgamation of all of Mario’s favourite sports, it would seem.

• Mario Tennis Aces is out June 22

07