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New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis

Remember the feeling you had the first time you ever played the Wii, when swinging your arms like mad while trying to return smashes in Wii Sports tennis? Remember the feeling of having sore elbows because of it? Above all else, remember how fun it all was?

For many, the feelings associated with this experience have all but died down. But it’s important that we not forget this, for even the most jaded among us undoubtedly had fun playing Wii Sports at some point, likely before many gaming blogs and their followers decided the Wii was a dust collector. It’s also important to not forget why we play games: there are many reasons, of course, but the main one is because they’re fun.

As an adult, I find it increasingly difficult to find time to game. The obligatory chores of day-to-day life, including work, leave little time for entertainment. This time, in turn, is spent on various mediums: TV shows, movies, music, and videogames (to name a few). At times and, given the fact that I’ve wilfully taken on a role as a videogame reviewer, things can actually get quite stressful. With the amount of games that often pile up on my coffee table, still wrapped and waiting to be played, it’s easy for me to see how so many long-time reviewers have become so cynical and so jaded.

The New Play Control! titles for Wii are essentially old GameCube games that have been reworked with Wii motion controls and, at the expense of coming across as cash-hungry monsters, it’s still understandable why Nintendo would release them (aside from wanting to make money, of course). Since the GameCube had nowhere near the commercial mainstream success that the Wii has, it makes perfect sense that the company would want to get some of its better GameCube-era titles in the hands of gamers – particularly new gamers.

This brings me to New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis, and why I even mentioned all that pseudo-thoughtful stuff at the start of this article. Simply put, when I first started playing the game, something clicked in my brain. I became aware of how much I was actually enjoying the game when my face got sore from smiling during a particularly intense tournament match versus Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. I’ve always been fond of the Mario sports titles and their over-the-top gameplay elements that often border on slapstick, and Mario Power Tennis is no exception to this. The Wii controls work so well for it that I can’t imagine playing my GameCube version again.

Take the fun of Wii Sports tennis and crank it up a notch, and you’ll be close to what Mario Power Tennis serves up. The game can be played with just a Wii Remote, using the D-Pad to move your character, but I find it more useful to use the Nunchuck for player movement, leaving my swinging arm open for sending volleys, smashes, and super shots at my opponents. While the gameplay is somewhat similar to that in Wii Sports tennis, only with more options, it’s notable that the swinging of the Wii Remote in this case doesn’t appear to correlate to as many different swing types. Despite this, the game still feels right.

New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis features the now-typical cast associated with most Mario titles, and each character has his/her own unique playing style, voice, and special abilities. At the most basic control type available, characters will pull off dives and super shots on their own. But more experienced players and control freaks will want to choose the more “difficult” controller settings. Game modes include exhibition play in which gamers can jump right into a match, a tournament including elimination trees, and bonus mini-games which have you batting tennis balls and other obstacles at chain chomps, ghosts, and POW blocks. Like all good Mario games, there are plenty of additional goodies to unlock along the way.

In addition to the colourful cast of characters, a good variety of different tennis court environments is available to play through. These take design cues from previous Nintendo games and characters. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I always prefer to play on the most plain of environments in these games. Although the themed envoronments are nice, they often detract from the idea that this is, at its core, a tennis game. But I should never need a reminder of this, as I’ve got a nice case of tennis elbow at the moment and will be reaching for the ice pack shortly.

New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis breathes new life into an old favourite, just as it assures us the Wii alive and well. It’s sadly true that many gamers have abandoned it for its flashier competitors. This, however, might just be a case of people growing increasingly fickle while having less time for fun in their lives. While this is sad for the Wii, it’s sadder still for those who choose to ignore it.

Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, Features, Wii |