Mario Golf, Nintendo 64, £49.99
When Mario Kart appeared on the Super Nintendo after the huge success of Super Mario World it seemed that Nintendo was cashing in on its most famous icon. Any game with Mario involved was likely to sell.
The cynics were soon silenced, though, because Mario Kart turned out to be a sublime racing game and has since spawned many clones. With Mario Golf Nintendo might again be accused of using the Italian plumber to raise sales unless it had made an above-par golf game.
Fortunately, from the first tee box it is clear that Mario Golf is a quality game. The courses look good and the game is highly intuitive. With 14 characters (including Mario) to choose from, six different courses and 10 modes of gameplay there is plenty of variety to the action. These include tournament, speed golf, stroke play, mini-golf, match game, skins match and training modes. The only problem is knowing where to start, although in hindsight the training mode wouldn't be a bad place.
On the surface of it the cute Mario-esque atmosphere of the game might make it seem that this was not serious golf. In fact the approach may be friendly, but this is a tough game, with all the pitfalls of the real thing.
Granted, players cannot adjust the position of their feet, as in some "serious" golf games like Links 2000 on PC. They can, though, draw and fade the ball, put backspin or topspin on it and play "approach" shots.
The real beauty of Mario Golf is accessibility, however. It really is one of those rare games that can be enjoyed by all ages. Golf is rarely played alone and Mario Golf should be no different. Whether it is a standard game or one of the varied game modes, Mario Golf is much more fun when played with others. It will keep up to four people very amused for long periods.
THE Sega Dreamcast has been on sale in Ireland for over three months, but the facility to play online has not been implemented yet. TV advertisements for the console use the slogan "play with up to six billion other players" and Sega obviously see online gaming as a major selling point. The £25 add-on keyboard for use online has been on sale in Ireland since the console launched. Despite this, Dreamcast owners can expect the built-in modem to remain dormant until the spring. Sega initially said that online action would be available in Ireland from December 31st.
NEW mutators for Unreal Tournament can be downloaded from http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_page_238_1.html
Mutators added to an Unreal Tournament game change the rules of a match and among those available for download are "catch up" and "bounty hunt". If the catch up mutator is used, players who are not doing so well will respawn with increasingly better weapons until they catch up. The bounty hunt mutator rewards those who achieve a "killing spree" (without this mutator the player is simply informed that they are on a killing spree) by increasing their speed and weapons damage.
THE Learning Company, which released the virtual pets "games" Dogz and Catsz, has now released the virtual bundle of joy - Babyz. You can teach them to walk and play music and, using the included microphone and IBM voice-recognition system, even teach them to talk. You can tickle them, feed them, give them toys, take snapshots of them for the Babyz book and dress them up. Parents can adopt up to three babyz at a time from 15 available and more can be downloaded from www.babyz.net.
games@irish-times.ie