Title: Golf US Course    Genre: Sports    Developers: Design: SHIMIZU Kazunobu Course design: MIKI Kenji Music: NAKATSUKA Akito, KANKI Yumiko    Released by: Nintendo    Release Date: June 14, 1987    Japanese level: 1    MSRP: 3500 yen    Current Price: 700 yen

Only a month and a half after the Golf Japan Course contest finished up, Nintendo made use of their Disk Fax machines again with the sort-of sequel, this one featuring the wide-open American course. As you can see Mario's changed his trousers for the occasion, taking the concept of fashionable golf wear to whole new stratospheres.

Even though it was only a few weeks, Nintendo felt that the old Japan Course system was too crap and changed it all around for this release. This time your main view of the course is the Mario's-eye-view; you can't hit the ball from the overhead view at all. I don't like this at all; it just doesn't feel like you're getting all the info you need as opposed to the old overhead view. The position of the flag on each hole's green changes with each game you play, too, making aiming from 3d mode more of a pain than it should be.

The only other main new feature is that you can move Mario around on the tee point to decide where he hits from. And Mario added a 1-iron to his bag. Big whoop. The menu system was revised to add this new feature so you have to hit a whole lot more buttons to choose your club, speed, and so on. And the course is still insanely difficult. Arghhh, give me back my full overhead view!!

The contest for US Course went along the same general lines as the first one. This time Nintendo sent a postcard to everyone that competed showing how their course stats compared with the rest of the children of Japan; nice of them. The main prize was ten thousand gold-colored copies of Punch-Out, which was unreleased at the time in Japan. The "real" Mike Tyson's Punch-Out got a more general release in November 1987, but the gold-cart version is still naturally sought after by true FC freaks. Shops in Akihabara try (and fail) to sell it in the box for $250, but 10,000 carts isn't a large amount at all in video-game land. Still searching...

1999.4.29

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