Mario Tennis, Peddle Peddle

I feel just terrible for neglecting the sports game genre. Well no that's a lie. Most sports games are for the gramers of society; EA caters to them not to my brand of gamer. However there are a few silly sports games I do enjoy playing. You guessed it audience, they deal with Nintendo and Mario. If you didn't actually guess it don't worry, I just told you.

Aight aight I'll stop with the meanness audience in order to move onto Mario Tennis (wahoo!). Now just for clarification I am going to be focusing on the N64 title and not its gameboy sub-par sibling. Saying that I own the gameboy version since I really wanted to unlock all the courts on the N64. We also won't be reviewing the virtual boy version. Or the DS version. Just N60-motherfucking awesome to the max four. Right-o, it's time to list random niblets of goodness about the game.

•  This game is entirely based upon the sport of tennis though some of the rules are altered (amount of games per set)
• You can be a multitude of Mario universe characters who each have a specific skill set i.e. Bowser is power based and Mario is all around.
• Gameplay can be singles or doubles for tournament mode
• There are special courts such as the Bowser Court, Ring Tournament, and Piranha Challenge which act as extra mini-games
• Deuce
• The game includes two unlockable characters (six including the four achieved from connecting the gameboy game to the N64 controller)
• Paratroopa is the most badass character
• Birdo is the lamest character even underneath Luigi status
• Each character has a victory dance 
• Each character also has a losing visual. Peach's is the most hilarious 

Well that sorta sums up the game. Sorta. I mean it is a tennis game so there isn't a plot or story to complain and rave about. What I love to do is play the tournaments and destroy my friends at multiplayer.

Star tournament with my favorite flying turtle

So the tournaments are initially the traditional three stages of Mario tournaments; mushroom, flower, and star. Eventually though if you beat the singles tournament with every character you unlock the special tournaments which are rainbow, moonlight, and planet. The special tournaments are slightly more difficult than the regular tournaments and contain more games and sets per match. Honestly though there's no better feeling than crushing an opponent at the Star tournament. Championship point!

Ah that's right. In this Mario game you (the player audience) find more voice over work than normal. For instance Peach will sadly bemoan losing a match with "oh I lost" followed by crying. Birdo also talks as does Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Toad, Baby Mario, Waluigi, and Wario. The others which consist of anthropomorphic creatures (Bowser, DK, Paratroopa, Boo, Yoshi, etc) make their trademark noises.

AKA Birdo

Oddly enough Birdo is given a female voice (she's really a he) as well as speech whereas Yoshi retains his usual "yoshi" sounds. Regardless the voice over tracks add to the game with not only interesting match sounds (just play as Peach) but also losing and winning sequences. However the best audio tracks belong to Mario since he is not only a playable character but also the tennis announcer.

During each match Mario introduces who is serving, the score, as well as match and championship points. My favorite is when Mario declares "Deuce!" (when both players achieve 40 points in a match a deuce is called requiring two consecutive points to be won in order to win the game) since deuce is both a funny sounding word and Mario has a funny sounding voice. Don't give me that look audience it is an amusing word. Just hearing it makes me think of a very special song. Heh heh, deuce. 

So you might be wondering why I favor Paratroopa as my go-to ass-kicking character. If you're not wondering why then too bad, bout to tell you why audience. Paratroopa is a "tricky" based character meaning he isn't the easiest to control at first since he favors a curved serve. However once mastering Paratroopa (or Boo) you can dominate the game. By performing a "curved" serve you are able to often stagger your opponent in the first point giving you a leading advantage. Deuces are funny to say not fun to play. Avoid the deuce and use Paratroopa!

Also Paratroopa says "pedal pedal," all the time which is adorable. He also backflips in victory. So yeah, he's a badass turtle. 

Aight well this blog post is short but it as about a tennis themed game so there isn't too much to be said. Basically if you enjoy tennis, love Mario characters, and believe the word Deuce to be funny you will enjoy this game audience. Remember though, Birdo sucks.

Hint for the next post - LAN