When playing golf games on the Wii, you can chart the course of your play with one simple act, namely teeing up your ball and giving the swing a try. If the swing mechanics are well implemented, chances are you'll find something in the game to enjoy. On the other hand, if the swing sucks, all of the well designed holes and extras in the world won't save the game from the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, Carnival Games Mini Golf falls squarely in the latter category, combining a cruddy swing mechanic with one of the most annoying video game characters to pollute your family room in some time.

When starting up the game, you'll be given the choice of playing single player mode or multiplayer. Whichever you choose, you first have to create your character. You can pick from four templates: an adult male and female and a child of each gender. Once you select a template you pick your head shape, skin color, a hairstyle and various clothing options. After that it's off to the course.

At first, only three theme areas are open with three holes each. Holes are split up among adventure holes, your traditional mini-golf holes complete with hazards and twists and turns, challenge holes that consist of mini-games to sink your shots and trick shots where the right choice nets you a hole in one. Playing all of the holes in a course then unlocks another themed area of a higher difficulty and so on until all themes are unlocked.

The holes are well constructed, and it's obvious that a lot of time went into thinking them up, however they still can be frustrating and, in some cases, incredibly easy if you've played it before thanks to a lack of randomization. For example, in the barnyard theme, you have to hit your ball into a jug based on the tune that the farmer blows on his own jug. The tune that he blows never changes, nor does the order of the jugs you're supposed to hit your ball into, so if you've played the hole before, the challenge is gone. Some of the mini-games utilized in the holes, such as steering your ball after a pterodactyl takes it or shooting ghosts are fun, but some are downright annoying. I'm looking at you big chicken.

As you navigate your ball around the hole, you get the chance to obtain themed tokens. Rolling your ball over a token nets you that token and based on how well you do in the hole (birdie, eagle, etc) you'll get a multiplayer applied to your token count. You'll also get the chance to roll over skull tokens which take tokens away from you, unfortunately at a much greater rate than you obtain them. For some reason, the designers thought that it would be fun for one chicken token to be worth, well, one token, but one skull token takes away five tokens. Tokens can be used to buy accessories and clothing, however given that a) the skull tokens take away for more than you might earn, b) items cost a ridiculous amount, like "over 300 tokens for a shirt" ridiculous, and c) tokens can't be pooled across themes and you're looking at a situation where you have to grind the same three holes over and over and over just to buy anything.