A few more Mario Golf impressions. So far so good, it's a good game. Solid. I really would like to play it with a few other people though as I hear that's where it shines. As a single player experience it's good, it has enough to keep you involved and enough variety that you don't really get bored.

It does seem to be missing something off the bat, namely courses you need to unlock (there's only one available at first). The first two are easy to unlock, but then it gets a bit harder. There's also 4 secret characters to unlock, not sure how to unlock those however. So obviously there's more to the game.

The driving part of the game is pretty rudimentary, but you'd expect that. The only time it isn't is on the harder courses, where they give you the option of trying a real hard shot to shave off some points. It reminds me of Golden Tee in that sense, where you have a high risk/reward for certain shots. This only comes up once and a while though.

The short game and putting is the tricky part though, especially getting it close to the pin. You really need to pick a character and learn them, because they all have different approach shots. I'm mainly using Waluigi and have him down a bit but it's still hard. The short game is where you earn your birdies. Putting is equally hard, and not very forgiving. Reading the green is key. You have enough info at all times to do what you need to do, it's just pulling it off that's the trick. I like that part of the game because it makes it a deep game. Unless you're playing the easy course, shooting below 60 is a real test of will (if under par sometimes).

Only a couple things that are annoying. One is the camera isn't as free moving as I would like. It does the job just fine, but I'd prefer 360 degrees of spin around the ball. You get about 120 or so. Also some of the characters are cool in thier voices/animations, like Wario, Waluigi and Bowser, but some are just stupid, namely Peach and especially Yoshi.

The thing that really pisses me off tho is that if you sit and look at your lie for more than 2 seconds a ghost comes out, makes a sound and says "Press A to Swing!". And keeps coming out every 2 seconds after that. It gets annoying quick. If you're fiddling w/ the controls it won't pop out, and once you get the hang of things you don't see it as much (you're just faster) but I wish I could turn it off. For now I've found that if I hold the C-stick to the left or right to move the camera a bit while I'm thinking about my shot, they won't come on the screen.

The mini-games are cool, but all pretty challenging. I'd say Closest to the Pin is hardest, just because you get major points docked if you don't hit the green, and the course it's on is in tree tops (Donkey Kong's) and the greens are small.

You do kinda have to take things toungue-in-cheek though. It's arcadey. It has a very deep swing and physics system, but it's still arcade golf. I'd like to at some point get a nice golf sim, but I'm not sure what would fill that at this point since Tiger Woods has turned into an arcadey game as well. Still, I'll enjoy this while I have it. Good fun.