Mario Tennis (2000)

 

I am again speaking with more than a tint of nostalgia, but this is my personal favorite of the Mario sports games. If I only have a tiny bit of time to play a video game, this is often the one I will play. 

This is a very straight forward sports game. It does not bother much with a storyline, rather simply letting you get directly into the gameplay. However, when the game play is this much fun, I don't care at all.  What is amazing is that the typical match is a straightforward tennis match with no Mario style gimmicks. There are no items and no obstacles in these regular matches, just simple tennis. The gameplay and controls are simple, easy to get used to and a lot of fun. This allows you to simply focus on the matches themselves rather than any gimmicks. The matches provide you with a good challenge but one that is never overwhelming hard. Though there are no gimmicks, there are a few fun little changes you can make to switch up the gameplay. One of these is you have an option between singles and doubles, both of which are a lot of fun. Another is that different characters (my favorite character to play as is Donkey Kong Jr.) have different skill sets. Some characters hit the ball harder than others, some move around the course quicker, and some are better capable of trick shots. This makes even what character you play as a part of your strategy. Also, different courses have different elements to them. Some courts cause the ball to bounce more than others for instance. 

This game also has various alternative ways to play which feature the Mario style gimmicks that are not included in the main game play. Personally, I find these alternative ways to play, not as fun as the main gameplay. 

The opening animation to this game is also a lot of fun and features a lot of good cartoony humor. 

This is honestly one of my most played video games. 

Mario Kart 64 (1996)

 

There may be a tinge of nostalgia speaking here but this is still my favorite Mario Kart game and my second favorite cart racing game (after Diddy Kong Racing of course). 

As much as I enjoyed Super Mario Kart, this follow up is an improvement in every way. With the N64 being capable of 3-D graphics, the developers took full advantage. These tracks look amazing. While the graphics may have dated, the track designs have not. These designs look larger than life with environments that are extremely memorable and atmospheric. This is enhanced by not having any two tracks that look alike. Each one has their own unique environment and feel as you hop from country roads to big cities to icy slopes to dangerous castles. Not only do these tracks look different from each other but some truly have their own unique challenges. In Yoshi Valley, there are numerous different paths to take and the game does not tell you who is in what spot until the final lap is complete.  Toad's Turnpike has you drive down a busy highway heading in the wrong direction. While you are trying to beat the other racers you are also trying to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. The most diffcult course is Banshee Boardwalk, where the track is very dark and contains lots of places you could fall off. You have to drive carefully while still trying to win the race. All of this creates a cart racing game that always feels fresh no matter how many times you play it. In my opinion none of the future Mario Kart games ever matched this one, when it comes to course design. These are the most creative, fun and memorable courses made for any Mario Kart game.  

The controls (while not as perfect as in later games) are a lot easier to control than in Super Mario Kart. Though they are not perfect, they very rarely get in the way of the player's enjoyment. The musical scores are fantastic and have stayed with me since childhood (I was still in single digits when this game came out). To this day I can not understand anyone who doesn't like the Rainbow Road theme music.

Speaking of childhood memories, I have great memories of playing the multiplay battle mode with my dad. 

This is a masterpiece. 

Pokémon Stadium (1999)

 

As a 90's kid, Pokémon was a major part of my childhood, so naturally I spent hours playing this N64 game growing up. Replaying it in my 30's, the game is still quite fun, though its flaws are also quite evident. 

This game skips the storyline and RPG elements of the mainline Pokémon games. Instead, here you can delve yourself directly into the battles by choosing six Pokémon from the 151 of this time and battle against various trainers and gym leaders. There are multiple options of how you can play this game. You can do quick one on one battles, you can compete in tournaments, you can battle your way through gym leaders, you can plug in one of your game boy games and play that game on the big TV screen or you can play a series of minigames.  

The lack of the story and RPG elements are both this game's greatest strength and its biggest flaw. It makes for a fun quick way to play some Pokémon, if you don't want to dedicate the time that you would need to for one of the mainline games. Though you are no longer raising or capturing Pokémon, there is still quite a bit of strategy to navigating the battles. These are trying to choose a variety of Pokémon in your line-up of six that will be able to stand against the widest variety of Pokémon and knowing what the right moves will be to use at what times. This strategy makes the battles fast paced and a lot of fun. However, at the same time the lack of raising and capturing Pokémon as well as any real storyline can make this game feel repetitive after a while. As such this game is a lot of fun, if you play it in short enough spurts. 

The minigames are similar to the main games in this way. These minigames are very simple and many of them are quite similar to one another. Yet each of these minigames is fun in their own right and as a kid, I played these minigames just as much as I had the battles, possibly even more. Again though, today these minigames are a lot of fun in short enough spurts but get too repetitive if you play them for too long of a period of time. 

This is a game that I love playing every once in a while, but if I play it too much I can easily get bored by the repetitiveness. 

-Michael J. Ruhland