Mario has certainly been in his fair share of sports game
throughout his illustrious career. He’s had a stab at football, golf, tennis, volleyball,
and hockey to name a few; he’s even an Olympian these days! Of all Mario’s sporting
efforts though, the Mario Tennis franchise has been one of the most popular
over the years and now 3DS owners will have the chance to take to the court
with Mario Tennis Open.
It all began twelve years ago when Camelot released Mario
Tennis on the N64, one of the best games on the console and my personal
favourite tennis sim of all time! Okay, so Mario Tennis isn’t the most
realistic tennis sim out there but I find it to be the most enjoyable! It’s
essentially a simplified version of the sport with tonnes of action, loads of
vibrancy, and the Mario Brothers instead of the Williams sisters. However saying
that realism is definitely needed in some degree or the game simply doesn’t
work. Just look at the below-bar Gamecube effort Mario Power Tennis where
‘power moves’ were added allowing the player to make an unreturnable shot once they'd built up enough power. The only way to return one of these shots was to
have a power shot at your disposal too; you can probably see why this stopped the game from
being a success.
