Review by: Danielle Riendeau

There’s something wonderfully chaotic about all of the Mario Sports titles – ever since Mario and the entirety of the Mushroom Kingdom (along with everyone in the Donkey Kong universe) first grabbed golf clubs and tennis racquets and crashed the courts and courses of the Nintendo 64 country club, nothing has ever been the same. While Mario and company have now conquered everything from golf to baseball to basketball to soccer to track and field, the gang’s efforts have always been best realized in the deceptively complex game of tennis.

While this Wii-fied version of Mario Power Tennis is nothing more than an enhanced port of the 2004 GameCube version, it still stands as one of the very best party/sports games you can get your hands on. The new controls add a measure of depth and physicality to an already very strategic game, and the overall presentation has aged fairly well, making this one a worthy entry in the Wii’s “party machine” lineup.

If you’ve come to this soiree expecting a more colorful version of Wii Sports Tennis, you’ll be quite surprised by the sheer variety of options. Mario’s version comes with several character classes (light and fast, power hitters, etc.) and a selection of different courts to play on – some of which are standard (and come in clay, grass and hard varieties, each of which affects the gameplay), and some are “gimmick” courts, which have chaotic events changing up the gameplay constantly, forcing the player to improvise on the fly. Along with tournament and exhibition play modes, there are also a variety of excellent minigames that build crucial ball-control skills.

Despite all the hardcore trappings (and yes, this game gets very hardcore if you stick with it), it’s still a goofy Mario sports game at heart. Each character has a powered-up shot and a sort of “saving grace” move that can be executed in order to reach an errant ball, and core gameplay is, after all, incredibly simple. Like Pong on steroids, tennis is all about hitting a ball over a net – first timers that can keep that in mind will do fine.