Multiplayer fun with Mario Golf: World Tour

Everyone plays simultaneously in multiplayer

Mario Golf: World Tour features four player multiplayer via online, or local play with just a single cartridge. As it should, but you know the best part of all this? Everyone is playing simultaneously. You don’t have to wait for other players to take their turn, you just go about your business and whoever performed the best at the end of the round wins.

If you do clear a course before another player, you’ll be able to watch them as they struggle to complete the stage. A nice addition, or an evil one depending on how you view it, is that you can taunt other players throughout a match too. You can give them a round of applause, or you can hit the “hurry up” button to potentially make them sweat a little.

Another neat touch to the overall Mario Golf concept is the inclusion of item blocks. You can either focus on on the course itself, or aim your golf ball to hit the item blocks floating about in stages. One item that you can get from the blocks is bullet bill, which once activated will have your ball reach its destination no matter what obstacles are in the way, such as the wind.

I only had about ten minutes of hands-on time with Mario Golf: World Tour, yet I was able to have fun despite my lack of interest in the sport. Mario Golf launches on May 2 for the 3DS.