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125-532: Mario Tennis is a 2000 sports video game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 (N64). Following Mario's Tennis , it is the second game in the Mario Tennis series . The game is known for being the introduction of Luigi 's arch-rival, Waluigi , and the re-introduction of Princess Daisy and Birdo . Camelot also developed a Game Boy Color (GBC) version, which

250-432: A Change.org petition calling for the character to be added to the game. IGN ' s Joe Skrebels described his non-playable status within the game as "a slap in the face for those who want a playable Waluigi". Fan reaction to the omission intensified and resulted in series director Masahiro Sakurai being subjected to a harassment campaign on social media. Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé acknowledged

375-566: A basketball court , a crowd, cheerleaders , four periods, the ability to rough up an opponent, and big dunks capable of backboard shattering . Konami's Punk Shot (1990) is an arcade basketball game with an element of violence, allowing players to physically attack each other, which CU Amiga magazine compared to the film Rollerball (1975). The success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America led to

500-625: A female sports game based on high-school track & field, The Undoukai , and a dirt track racing game Buggy Challenge , with a buggy . Other dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo 's Excitebike and SNK 's motocross game Jumping Cross . Nintendo also released a four-player racquet sport game, VS. Tennis (the Nintendo VS. System version of Tennis ). That same year, ice hockey games were also released: Alpha Denshi's Bull Fighter and Data East's Fighting Ice Hockey . Data East also released

625-441: A lawn sports game Haro Gate Ball , based on croquet , while Nichibutsu released a game based on roller derby , Roller Jammer . Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a game based on sumo wrestling, Syusse Oozumou , and the first martial arts combat-sport game, Karate Champ , considered one of the most influential fighting games. In 1985, Nintendo released an arm wrestling game, Arm Wrestling , while Konami released

750-447: A table tennis game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, Konami's Ping Pong . On home consoles, Mattel released Intellivision World Series Baseball ( IWSB ), designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower , in late 1983. It is considered the earliest sports video game to use multiple camera angles to show the action in a manner resembling a sports television broadcast. Earlier sports games prior to this had displayed

875-497: A "corporate trash character that's lazy, dumb, and uninteresting". He noted that due to his lack of characterisation, fans had spent years creating their own backstories for him. Destructoid wrote that Waluigi's name and design amounted to "creative bankruptcy" and thought that the Internet had created him as a meme that was outside of the character that Nintendo depicted and then mistakenly treated it as canon. In Icons of Horror and

1000-475: A bad version of Luigi, he was named Waluigi. An early idea for the symbol on Waluigi's hat was a W, but as this was the same as Wario, it was changed to the letters W and L. Yōichi Kotabe , who supervised the character at Nintendo, decided that this should be an upside down L as an inversion of Luigi, just as the letter W in Wario is an upside down letter M for Mario. Waluigi's appearance was designed to be lean to create

1125-519: A balanced team combination with the stoutness of Wario. Camelot took inspiration from Boyacky and Tonzura from the Doronbo Gang in the Yatterman series. His purple colouring was chosen to create a balance of colours alongside those of the other characters in the game and his moustache created in the shape of the letter L. Takahashi said that Waluigi was characterised as the rival of Luigi, with them having

1250-525: A bonus mode in which the court tilts based on the players' positions, affecting movement, and the ball can be hit through Mario Kart item boxes that release items to disrupt opponents. Most modes support multiplayer for up to two players in singles and up to four players in doubles. In addition to Exhibition mode, the Game Boy Color version features an exclusive story mode with role-playing game mechanics called Mario Tour. In this mode, players begin as

1375-503: A brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release. Sega launched its own competing NFL series on the Sega Genesis. The gameplay of Sega's earlier 1987 Master System title Great Football (1987) was the basis for Joe Montana Football (1991), developed by EA and published by Sega for

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1500-409: A continuous action. For example, football games may distinguish between short and the long passes based on how long the player holds a button. Golf games often initiate the backswing with one button-push, and the swing itself is initiated by a subsequent push. Arcade sports games have traditionally been very popular arcade games . The competitive nature of sports lends itself well to the arcades where

1625-437: A control system that differs from most other video tennis games. Shots are performed by pressing one, or both, of the two main buttons (A or B), which make the ball spin in different ways. Pressing a button twice strikes the tennis shot with more power and spin. Additionally, pressing the two buttons in a different order can result in a different type of shot altogether, such as a lob or drop shot . Both buttons can be pressed at

1750-516: A cult hero. Waluigi was created during the development of the game Mario Tennis to serve as the bitter rival to Luigi . He was originally introduced as Wario 's younger brother in the American version of the game. His character design was created by Fumihide Aoki. His name is a portmanteau of Luigi's name and the Japanese adjective warui ( 悪い ) meaning "bad"; hence, a "bad Luigi". Waluigi

1875-499: A developer for Mario Power Tennis chose him and Wario as his favorite characters in Power Tennis , adding that he prefers characters with more personality. Ian Walker of Kotaku expressed a pure love for Waluigi on the character's 20th anniversary and highlighted that while Mario, Luigi and Wario are all sympathetic characters, "Waluigi stands apart as the one truly irredeemable scoundrel" and considered that an aspect of his character

2000-858: A game called Tennis for Two , a competitive two-player tennis game played on an oscilloscope . The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game (rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer. Video games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation 's PDP-10 and Control Data Corporation 's PLATO . Both could only display text, and not graphics, originally printed on teleprinters and line printers , but later printed on single-color CRT screens . Ralph Baer developed Table Tennis for

2125-585: A horizontal side-scrolling format, depicting one or two tracks at a time, a large scoreboard that displayed world records and current runs, and a packed audience in the background. Despite the industry's hype for laserdisc games at the time, Track & Field became the most well-received game at the Amusement Machine Show (AM Show) in Tokyo and the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in

2250-413: A lot of self-pity. Waluigi's design is characterised by his tall stature, thin and lanky frame, and his purple and black outfit with purple hat, which displays an inverted yellow "L". He was designed as Wario's tennis partner and sidekick, debuting in the 2000 Nintendo 64 game Mario Tennis . He has featured in over 50 video games, appearing in at least one game every year since his debut until 2022. He

2375-480: A marketing budget of $ 4 million. Mario Tennis received critical acclaim, with critics citing the accessibility and depth of the controls as being very impressive. The game physics and amount of content have also been praised. The Nintendo 64 version received "universal acclaim" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . The game was a runner-up for GameSpot 's annual "Best Nintendo 64 Game" award, losing to Perfect Dark . Its Game Boy Color version

2500-613: A menu where players may select a strategy while play is temporarily suspended. Association football video games sometimes shift gameplay modes when it is time for the player to attempt a penalty kick, a free shot at goal from the penalty spot, taken by a single player. Some sports games also require players to shift roles between the athletes and the coach or manager. These mode switches are more intuitive than other game genres because they reflect actual sports. Older 2D sports games sometimes used an unrealistic graphical scale, where athletes appeared to be quite large in order to be visible to

2625-494: A number of actions, including a back heel, power kick , high kick, sliding tackle , super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, or get a yellow or red penalty card for if he is. In 1991, the American football game Tecmo Super Bowl was the first mainstream sports game to feature both the league and player association licenses of

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2750-469: A part of the web". In April 2009, he appeared in the webcomic Brawl in the Family , which was renamed "Waluigi in the Family" for April Fools' Day . He became a recurring character, resulting in the webcomic introducing the catchphrase "Too bad. Waluigi time." In May 2021, in an episode of Saturday Night Live , host Elon Musk starred as Wario in a sketch in which he was put on trial for murdering Mario in

2875-638: A playable character in Mario Golf: World Tour . In the 2021 golf game Mario Golf: Super Rush , his Special Shot is his Slim Stinger, which blasts balls out of its path. He also performs a Dance-off Dash, in which he pirouettes and leaps. Waluigi appears in the Mario Strikers series beginning with Super Mario Strikers . He is one of nine Mario characters that can be chosen as team captains. He returns in Mario Strikers Charged and

3000-418: A race". Pedro Hernandez writing for Nintendo World Report commented that Waluigi is a "very structurally basic character", simply Wario transformed into Luigi with a purple colour scheme. He said that while Wario was given a personality and story, Waluigi was just an accessory to Wario whose purpose was to pad out the supporting characters. He also noted that gamers had developed a love/hate relationship with

3125-519: A rookie tennis player at the Royal Tennis Academy, who must build up their skill by leveling up through training and practice matches before entering various tournaments. The aim of this mode is to be crowned champion at the academy, although the second part of the game involves the player competing in a tournament to ultimately face Mario , the best tennis player. The role-playing is playable in singles and doubles (separately), effectively doubling

3250-487: A rose as a recurring accessory. As displayed in Mario Power Tennis and Mario Hoops 3-on-3 , Waluigi has the ability to summon a body of water and swim towards the ball, which IGN editor Rob Burman described as "baffling". From his debut in 2000, Waluigi appeared in at least one game every year until 2022. This 22-year streak ended in 2023, which was the first year that Waluigi did not appear in any game. He

3375-503: A season mode with nearly the entire NFL roster. Tecmo Super Bowl is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, as it was the first mainstream sports video game with both the league and player association licenses, with ESPN ranking it the greatest sports video game of all time. Sega also developed American football games for their competing Master System console, Great Football in 1987 and American Pro Football ( Walter Payton Football ) in 1989,

3500-474: A set of seven Super Mario amiibo figures. Since his appearance in Mario Tennis , Waluigi has received a mixed reception. Ben Bertoli of Kotaku said that the game introduced "one of gaming's greatest anti-heroes" and that Waluigi had since gained a cult following. IGN editor Matt Casamassina described him as a recognizable mascot to many, but also as a beloved one to Nintendo fans. Hiroyuki Takahashi,

3625-486: A similar relationship to Mario and Wario. Upon his debut in Mario Tennis , Waluigi was voiced by Charles Martinet , who continued to voice the character until stepping back from recording character voices in 2023 to take on a new role as Mario Ambassador at Nintendo. Waluigi's appearance in Super Mario Strikers gained attention for a celebratory taunt that became known as the "Crotch chop". The taunt involves

3750-496: A simpler " arcade-style " approach to its gameplay, ISS Pro introduced more complex simulation gameplay emphasizing tactics and improvisation, enabled by tactical variety such as nine in-match strategy options. In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly reported that sports games accounted for roughly 50% of console software sales. At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, extreme sport video games began to appear more frequently. Namco 's Alpine Racer (1994)

3875-401: A single game in 2023 and thought the character had been forgotten by Nintendo and deserved his own game, particularly because Princess Peach appears in her own game . Due to his popularity, Waluigi has been featured in popular culture in the form of memes, songs and poems. Elijah Watson of The Daily Dot chronicled his influence as an internet meme from 2008, describing him as "beloved by

Mario Tennis - Misplaced Pages Continue

4000-462: A single game. Wii Sports and Nintendo Switch Sports are recent examples. A popular sub-genre are Olympic video games , including Track & Field and other similar titles. Multi-sport tournaments are becoming the basis for computer games. Sports video games have origins in sports electro-mechanical games (EM games), which were arcade games manufactured using a mixture of electrical and mechanical components, for amusement arcades between

4125-515: A stadium or arena with clear boundaries. Sports games often provide play-by-play and color commentary through the use of recorded audio. Sports games sometimes make use of different modes for different parts of the game. This is especially true in games about American football such as the Madden NFL series, where executing a pass play requires six different gameplay modes in the span of approximately 45 seconds. Sometimes, other sports games offer

4250-401: A tennis tournament and plotting their revenge on Mario and Luigi by teaming up with Bowser, who helps them to train up for the doubles final. In Mario Tennis Aces , Waluigi is a defensive character that can cover a wide area. He and Wario initiate the story events by offering Mario a racket called Lucien that possesses Luigi and threatens to destroy the kingdom. During gameplay he can perform

4375-401: A tournament is completed; players can unlock new characters and tennis courts by completing certain tournaments with specific characters. Ring Shot features several game types based around hitting the ball through rings scattered around the court. Piranha Challenge is a single-player challenge mode in which three Piranha Plants randomly spit out balls that the player must return. Bowser Stage is

4500-412: A trend where presentation would play an increasingly important role in sports games. Magic Johnson's Fast Break (1988) by Arcadia Systems had detailed characters and audio clips of Magic Johnson 's voice. Midway, who had not released a basketball game in sixteen years since Taito's TV Basketball in 1974, released Arch Rivals (1989), a two-on-two game featuring large players with distinct looks,

4625-577: A trick shot in which he moonwalks . He also performs a special shot that involves spinning around flaunting a rose. Alongside Princess Daisy , Waluigi joined the Mario Party series starting with Mario Party 3 . The game features his own board filled with traps named Waluigi's Island. After Mario Party 3 , he returned as a playable character in every subsequent game in the Mario Party series except Mario Party Advance . He next appeared as one of

4750-610: A vampire wearing a top hat and cape and riding a Vampire Flyer kart. Waluigi appears in Mario Superstar Baseball (2005) as one of the cast of characters featuring Mario and friends. He reprises his role as a playable character in Mario Super Sluggers . Waluigi plays a significant role as the main antagonist of Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix , in which he wreaks havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom by stealing

4875-759: Is a playable character in Mario sports games, most Mario Party games and also in the Mario Kart series. He has also made appearances in other video games, such as the Super Smash Bros. series. Since his debut, he has received a polarized reception from the media, often being accused of having few defining characteristics and minimal backstory. Waluigi has attained a cult following , especially helped through his use as an Internet meme . Although he has never appeared in his own video game or any mainline Mario game, critics have described him as one of Nintendo's mascots and

5000-507: Is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football ; it also popularized the use of a trackball, with the game's developers mentioning it was inspired by an earlier Japanese association football game that used a trackball. Atari Football was the second highest-earning arcade video game of 1979 in the United States, below only Taito's shoot 'em up blockbuster Space Invaders (1978), though Atari Football

5125-593: Is introduced in the game's introduction where Mario, Bowser and other major characters battle for the ball on a soccer field. He appears as a playable character in Mario Strikers: Battle League , where he is a defensive character and can perform a powerful kick that sends the ball towards the goal leaving a trail of thorns. Waluigi is a playable driver in the Mario Kart series, first appearing in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! , where his course

Mario Tennis - Misplaced Pages Continue

5250-526: Is known as Waluigi Stadium . He features in all subsequent console installments with the exception of Mario Kart 7 . In Mario Kart DS , Waluigi has his own course named Waluigi Pinball , which later returned as a DLC booster course in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe . He is a recurring character in Mario Kart Tour , where he also appears as a bus driver. In October 2021 for a Halloween event Mario Kart Tour introduced another variant of Waluigi dressed as

5375-449: Is present in everyone. Ryan Craddock of Nintendo Life also celebrated the 20-year anniversary of his debut, stating that they could not imagine a Nintendo sports game without him. Writing for Game Informer , Dan Ryckert felt that Waluigi should be the star of his own game because he considered him to be funnier than Wario and highlighted that his legs look hilarious when running. Despite this, he opined that Nintendo did not care about

5500-546: Is the only regular character in the Mario franchise to never appear in his own game or be given a role in the mainline Mario series. His first appearance was in the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color versions of Mario Tennis , establishing himself as Wario's doubles partner. He remained partners with Wario for future installments, the one exception being Mario Tennis: Power Tour , where he appeared in-game without Wario. Mario Power Tennis begins with Wario and Waluigi losing

5625-545: Is the same age. His Super Smash Bros. Melee trophy describes him as hardworking by stating that he spends his time training and perfecting his skills in order to antagonise the Mario brothers. Although he has a scrawny physique, Waluigi is technically skilled and athletic, but sometimes cheats in-game. His design comprises black overalls, a purple long-sleeved shirt, a purple hat with a yellow "Γ" symbol (an inverted L, paralleling Wario's W as an upside-down M). Martinet stated that

5750-556: The Sensible Soccer series (1992 debut). Several sports laserdisc games were released for arcades in 1984, including Universal 's Top Gear which displayed 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's GP World and Taito's Laser Grand Prix displayed live-action footage. Sega also produced a bullfighting game, Bull Fight , and a multiple-watersports game Water Match (published by Bally Midway ), which included swimming, kayaking and boat racing ; while Taito released

5875-682: The Super Mario Bros. style. Although he does not make an appearance in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door , Mario can be dressed in the colors of Waluigi. In 2016, he was introduced alongside other core Mario characters to the Minecraft: Wii U Edition as a skin in the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack. In Super Mario Odyssey , an outfit modeled after Waluigi's own can be purchased in-game and worn by Mario after

6000-546: The 4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences honored Mario Tennis with the " Console Family " award. Sports video game Sports games involve physical and tactical challenges, and test the player's precision and accuracy. Most sports games attempt to model the athletic characteristics required by that sport, including speed, strength, acceleration, accuracy, and so on. As with their respective sports, these games take place in

6125-433: The Nintendo VS. System titles VS. Tennis and VS. Baseball , Taito's golf game Birdie King II , and Data East 's Tag Team Wrestling . 10-Yard Fight in 1983 had a career mode , where the player progresses from high school , to college , professional , playoff , and Super Bowl , as the difficulty increases with each step. Irem's waterskiing game Tropical Angel had a female player character , and

6250-495: The PlayStation console. The following year, Square 's popular role-playing video game , Final Fantasy VII , included a snowboarding minigame that was later released as an independent snowboarding game, Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding , for mobile phones. In 2000, SSX was released. Based around boardercross , the game featured fast downhill races, avoiding various objects whilst using others to perform jumps and increase

6375-487: The Pong market crashed around the mid-1970s. Sports video games would not regain the same level of success until the 1980s. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, Heavyweight Champ , based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game . In March 1978, Sega released World Cup , an association football game with a trackball controller. In October 1978, Atari released Atari Football , which

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6500-428: The arcade video game industry, so they began turning to sports games. The arcade industry began producing sports games at levels not seen since the days of Pong and its clones, which played a role in the recovery of the arcade market by the mid-1980s. There were initially high expectations for laserdisc games to help revive the arcade industry in 1983, but it was instead non-laserdisc sports games that ended up being

6625-570: The highest-grossing arcade sports game of all time. FIFA International Soccer (1993), the first game in EA's FIFA series of association football video games , released on the Sega Mega Drive and became the best-selling home video game of 1993 in the United Kingdom. In contrast to the top-down perspective of earlier association football games, FIFA introduced an isometric perspective to

6750-612: The history of the Nintendo Entertainment System , as they were the earliest NES games released in North America, initially in the arcades and then with the console's launch. Nintendo's arcade version VS. Baseball (1984) was competing with Sega's earlier hit Champion Baseball in the arcades. On home computers, Track & Field spawned similar hit Olympic games for computer platforms, such as Ocean Software 's Daley Thompson's Decathlon (1984). Electronic Arts produced their first sports game for home computers,

6875-400: The wrestling game Tag Team Wrestling . In the field of association football games , Alpha Denshi's Exciting Soccer (1983) featured digitized voices and a top-down overhead perspective, which was later popularized by Tehkan World Cup (1985) from Tehkan (later Tecmo). Tehkan World Cup was a multiplayer association football game with a trackball controller, where a button

7000-661: The 1940s and 1970s. Examples include boxing games such as International Mutoscope Reel Company 's K.O. Champ (1955), bowling games such as Bally Manufacturing 's Bally Bowler and Chicago Coin 's Corvette from 1966, baseball games such as Midway Manufacturing 's Little League (1966) and Chicago Coin's All Stars Baseball (1968), other team sport games such as Taito 's Crown Soccer Special (1967) and Crown Basketball (1968), and air hockey type games such as Sega 's MotoPolo (1968) and Air Hockey (1972) by Brunswick Billiards . The earliest sports video game dates backs to 1958, when William Higinbotham created

7125-535: The Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game on the list. International Superstar Soccer Pro ( ISS Pro ), released for the PlayStation in 1997, was considered a "game-changer" for association football games, which had been largely dominated by rival FIFA on home systems for the last several years. Developed by Konami Tokyo , ISS Pro introduced a new 3D engine capable of better graphics and more sophisticated gameplay than its rival. Whereas FIFA had

7250-534: The GBC version to the N64 game, retaining the characters' stats. Using these characters, experience points may be earned to transfer back to the GBC version. As the characters go up in levels, the player may send their improved characters to the N64 version to level up again. Linking the two games also unlocks Yoshi , Wario, Waluigi, Bowser , and their respective mini-games in the GBC version; completing these mini-games and connecting

7375-586: The GBC version, are also omitted from the Virtual Console releases. At Nintendo's suggestion, Princess Daisy was brought back from obscurity after having only ever appeared in Super Mario Land and NES Open Tournament Golf in order to give Luigi a doubles partner like Mario had Peach. Camelot asked Nintendo if the game could also feature girlfriends for Wario and Waluigi, but Miyamoto said that he "didn't even want to see their girlfriends." The game had

7500-503: The Genesis. Sega then released their own sequel without EA's involvement, Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football (1991), which became the first American football game with audio commentary. After Sega acquired the NFL license, they shortened the title to NFL Sports Talk Football Starring Joe Montana , which later became known as Sega's NFL series. Due to strong competition from Madden , the series

7625-580: The Mattel Intellivoice module. The game was sophisticated for its time, but was a commercial failure, released around the time of the video game crash of 1983 when the North American home video game market collapsed. Nintendo released a series of highly successful sports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System console and the arcade Nintendo VS. System , starting with Baseball (1983) and Tennis (1984). They played an important role in

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7750-598: The Music Keys to hypnotize the world with his dancing, requiring Mario and Luigi to retrieve them. He also appears as one of the player characters shooting hoops alongside Mario in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (titled Mario Slam Basketball in Europe), where he performs a swimming ability. Waluigi is one of several playable characters appearing in the Mario & Sonic series, starting with the crossover sports game Mario & Sonic at

7875-491: The NBA Playoffs (1989), the latter ported to the Genesis in 1991, which added more simulation aspects to the subgenre. In the arcades, Midway followed Arch Rivals with NBA Jam (1993), which introduced digitized sprites similar to their fighting game Mortal Kombat (1992), combined with a gameplay formula similar to Arch Rivals . In its first twelve months of release, NBA Jam generated over $ 1 billion to become

8000-635: The Olympic Games , which features Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog . He appears alongside other Mario characters in Mario Sports Mix , a sports game featuring hockey, volleyball, dodgeball and basketball. He and other Mario characters appear in Mario Sports Superstars . A variant of Waluigi named Dr. Waluigi appeared as one of 45 doctor characters in the mobile game Dr. Mario World before

8125-619: The Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares, Volume 1 , S. T. Joshi cites Waluigi and Wario as archetypal examples of alter egos. His exclusion as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (confirmed when the character was announced as a non-playable Assist Trophy during E3 2018 ) was met with negative reception from the gaming press and social media, including a comedic Twitter post by Netflix . The response resulted in numerous Internet memes and

8250-616: The United States, the best-selling arcade video game of 1973 was Pong , followed by several of its clones and variants, including Pro Tennis from Williams Electronics , Winner from Midway Manufacturing , Super Soccer and Tennis Tourney from Allied Leisure (later called Centuri), and TV Tennis from Chicago Coin . In Japan, arcade manufacturers such as Taito initially avoided video games as they found Pong to be simplistic compared to more complex EM games, but after Sega successfully tested-marketed Pong in Japan, Sega and Taito released

8375-788: The United States. The game sold 38,000 arcade units in Japan, became one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 in the United States, and the top-grossing arcade game of 1984 in the United Kingdom. It was also the basis for an organized video game competition that drew more than a million players in 1984. The success of Track & Field spawned other similar Olympic video games . Numerous sports video games were subsequently released in arcades after Track & Field , including American football games such as 10-Yard Fight (1983) by Irem and Goal to Go (1984) by Stern Electronics , boxing video games such as Nintendo's Punch-Out! (1984), martial arts sports fighting games such as Technōs Japan 's Karate Champ (1984),

8500-433: The arcades, and subsequently served as the prototype for later baseball video games . It had a split-screen format, displaying the playfield from two camera angles , one from the outfield and another close-up shot of the player and batter, while also giving players the option of selecting relief pitchers or pinch hitters, while an umpire looks on attentively to make the game calls. The game also had digitized voices for

8625-429: The basketball title Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One (1983), which was the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes; the inclusion of famous real world athletes would become one of the most important selling points for sports games. One on One became Electronic Arts' best-selling game, and the highest-selling computer sports game, having sold 400,000 copies by late 1988. In

8750-412: The character Waluigi makes his first appearance in this game, having been created to give Wario a doubles partner. In addition to the player's created character, the GBC version features 25 playable characters, consisting of nine Mario series characters and 16 human characters from the game's story mode. Through the use of a Nintendo 64 Transfer Pak , players are able to import their characters from

8875-478: The character because his relationship to Wario had never been clarified. While describing Waluigi as a "hollow absence of a character" and "a rejected Frankenstein monster , cobbled together from half-assed, bad, or otherwise meaningless ideas", Dom Nero of Esquire praised the character for his tennis skills and the fluidity of his movements. He opined that playing as Waluigi in Mario Tennis Aces epitomises

9000-423: The character promoting a blue-purple Switch colorway had gained considerable Internet attention due to his seductive pose and use of a rose as a romantic gesture. Briana Lawrence of The Mary Sue described Waluigi as "Nintendo's ultimate sex symbol " in reference to his official render and found him to be interesting due to the mysterious nature of his character. This positive reaction to Waluigi's animations

9125-430: The character thrusting his hips forward while gesturing towards his crotch. Despite looking like the letter V, Waluigi's chop using both hands was supposed to represent the W in his name. The game's director, Mike Inglehart, said that the development team at Next Level Games wanted to make Waluigi "a bit edgier than Wario" and explore his character. He thought that Waluigi's character was about blaming others, whereas Wario

9250-518: The character, as he had generated universal hatred while also gaining a cult following. Chris Buffa of GameDaily included him as one of the characters they wanted to kill, describing him as "one of the most unimportant characters in video game history". Brett Elston of GamesRadar+ described Waluigi as a "lame-o villain" in an otherwise great game, referencing Mario Tennis . Matthew Gault of Vice criticised Waluigi for having no defining characteristics other than hating Luigi and described him as

9375-546: The clones Pong Tron and Elepong , respectively, in July 1973, before the official Japanese release of Pong by Atari Japan (later part of Namco ) in November 1973. Tomohiro Nishikado 's four-player Pong variant Soccer was released by Taito in November 1973, with a green background to simulate an association football playfield along with a goal on each side. Another Taito variant, Pro Hockey (1973), set boundaries around

9500-652: The cornerstone of Waluigi's personality is one of self-pity, a character who feels that everything goes right for everyone but himself. Waluigi was created to be the tennis partner of Wario in Mario Tennis and early material from Nintendo of Europe portrayed them as brothers, but their relationship has since been ambiguous. When asked whether Waluigi was a brother to Wario in 2008, Martinet stated that while he did not know, he felt that they were just "two nice, evil guys who found each other". Despite having appeared in more than 50 video games, Waluigi has been provided with little backstory and has few defining traits other than

9625-491: The early 2000s. A rivalry subsequently emerged between FIFA and PES , considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games. PES became known for having "faster-paced tactical play" and more varied emergent gameplay , while FIFA was known for having more licenses. The FIFA series had sold over 16 million units by 2000, while the PES series had sold more than 10 million units by 2002. The sales gap between

9750-623: The emphasis being more on realism than on how fun the game is to pick up and play based from the competitive seasons of each sport. The simulation-style tends to be slower and more accurate with normal rules while arcade games tend to be fast and can have all kinds of ad-hoc rules and ideas thrown in, especially pre-2000s. Examples of this include the EA Sports FC , NHL , EA Sports WRC , F1 , MotoGP , PGA Tour , PGA Tour 2K , MLB The Show , Madden NFL , EA Sports College Football and NBA 2K series. A sports management game puts

9875-405: The entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. IWSB mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also one of the first sports video games to feature audibly speaking digitized voices (as opposed to text), using

10000-495: The fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990, Orr and Hilleman released Madden Football . They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface and responsive controls. Electronic Arts had only expected to sell around 75,000 units, but instead the title sold around 400,000 units. In 1990, Taito released Football Champ , an association football game that allows up to four players in both competitive and cooperative gameplay . It also let players perform

10125-464: The first video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. While the console had other sports-themed game cards, they required the use of television overlays while playing similarly to board games or card games . Table Tennis was the only Odyssey game that was entirely electronic and did not require an overlay, introducing a ball-and-paddle game design that showcased the potential of

10250-467: The following year. Ramtek later released Baseball in October 1974, similarly featuring the use of character graphics. In 1975, Nintendo released EVR-Race , a horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players. It was a mixture between a video game and an electro-mechanical game, and played back video footage from a video tape . After the market became flooded with Pong clones,

10375-403: The game was shut down. In the Super Smash Bros. series, starting with Brawl , Waluigi appears as a non-playable Assist Trophy item. When Waluigi was revealed as an Assist Trophy but not a playable character for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U , game director Masahiro Sakurai jokingly stated that "just because you try hard doesn't mean you'll make it into the battle". He

10500-500: The game's longevity. There are training facilities that can help the player progress. The GBC version also features multiple mini-games, such as controlling Donkey Kong to hit banana targets on a wall within a time limit. Multiplayer for two players is supported via use of the Game Link Cable . The N64 version of Mario Tennis features 16 playable characters, 10 of which did not appear in the previous Mario Tennis game . Notably,

10625-581: The genre. International Superstar Soccer (1994), the first game in Konami 's International Superstar Soccer ( ISS ) series, released for the SNES. A rivalry subsequently emerged between the FIFA and ISS franchises. In the 1990s, 3D graphics were introduced in sports games. Early uses of flat-shaded polygons date back to 1991, with home computer games such as 4D Sports Boxing and Winter Challenge . However, it

10750-516: The joy of playing video games and highlighted his moonwalking backswing, spins and tossing of roses as "devilishly entertaining". VG247 writer Kelsey Raynor thought that the Waluigi Pinball track was the best in the Mario Kart series, stating that it was "Waluigi's time to shine" and was the perfect opportunity for a character associated with chaos to force drivers into a "sadistic death-trap of

10875-462: The late 1980s, basketball video games gained popularity in arcades. Konami's Double Dribble (1986) featured colorful graphics, five-on-five gameplay, cutaway animations for slam dunks , and a digitized version of " The Star-Spangled Banner " theme. It was considered the most realistic basketball game upon release, with fast-paced action, detailed players, a large side-scrolling court, innovative cinematic dunks, and detailed sound effects, beginning

11000-503: The latter very well received by critics at the time. The late 1980s is considered the "Golden Age" of baseball video games . Namco 's R.B.I. Baseball (1986) and the Atlus title Major League Baseball (1988) for the NES were the first fully licensed baseball video games. SNK 's Baseball Stars (1989) was a popular arcade-style NES game, while Jaleco 's NES title Bases Loaded (1987)

11125-506: The main objective is usually to obtain a high score . The arcade style of play is generally more unrealistic and focuses on a quicker gameplay experience. However the competitive nature of sports and being able to gain a high score while competing against friends for free online, has made online sports games very popular. Examples of this include the NFL Blitz and NBA Jam series. Simulation games are more realistic than arcade games, with

11250-413: The most well-received hits at amusement arcade shows by late 1983. In March 1983, Sega released Alpha Denshi 's arcade game Champion Baseball , which became a blockbuster success in Japanese arcades, with Sega comparing its impact on Japanese arcades to that of Space Invaders . Champion Baseball was a departure from the " space games " and "cartoon" action games that had previously dominated

11375-418: The need to be liked, an appreciation of Princess Daisy , and his habit of screaming out his signature catchphrase, "Waaah!" In various Mario sports games Waluigi can perform exaggerated athletic moves. In Mario Power Tennis when making an offensive power shot, he demonstrates his spinning ability and poses in the shape of his "Γ" symbol. In Mario Party 8 , his preferred victory stance involves producing

11500-415: The new video game medium. This provided the basis for the first commercially successful video game, Pong (1972), released as an arcade video game by Atari, Inc. Numerous ball-and-paddle games that were either clones or variants of Pong were released for arcades in 1973. Atari themselves released a four-player cooperative multiplayer variant, Pong Doubles (1973), based on tennis doubles . In

11625-478: The platform becoming a major platform for American sports video games. Basketball games included a port of Double Dribble , with a halo mechanic signifying the optimum release for shots, and Tecmo NBA Basketball (1992). American football video games included Tecmo Bowl (1987), which was ported to the NES with the NFL Players Association license, and Tecmo Super Bowl (1991), which introduced

11750-576: The playable characters in Mario Party 4 . In Mario Party-e , one of the multiplayer duels is named Waluigi's Reign. In the Mario Golf series, Waluigi features as a playable character alongside other main Mario characters in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour , where he has his own unique play style. Waluigi and Wario are presented as the villains in the game's introduction until they get into trouble by angering Bowser. In 2014, he returned as

11875-459: The player has collected enough Power Moons. A Rabbid version of Waluigi named Bwaluigi appears as a boss alongside Wario's Rabbid counterpart Bwario in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle . Waluigi has appeared in official branded merchandise, such as plush dolls, clothing and food packaging. His purple colour scheme and design has been used on official Nintendo Switch controllers. In April 2016, Nintendo released an amiibo of Waluigi as part of

12000-465: The player in the role of team manager . Whereas some games are played online against other players, management games usually pit the player against AI controlled teams in the same league . Players are expected to handle strategy, tactics, transfers, and financial issues. Various examples of these games can be found in the sports management category . Since Track & Field (1983), various multi-sport video games have combined multiple sports into

12125-423: The player's speed. In 1997, Sega released one of the first mainstream skateboarding games, Top Skater , in the arcades, where it introduced a skateboard controller interface. Top Skater served as a basic foundation for later skateboarding games. The following year saw the release of the console skateboarding game Street Sk8er , developed by Atelier Double and published by Electronic Arts . In 1999,

12250-532: The player. As sports games have evolved, players have come to expect a realistic graphical scale with a high degree of verisimilitude. Sports games often simplify the game physics for ease of play, and ignore factors such as a player's inertia. Games typically take place with a highly accurate time-scale, although they usually allow players to play quick sessions with shorter game quarters or periods. Sports games sometimes treat button-pushes as continuous signals rather than discrete moves, in order to initiate and end

12375-458: The players and the baskets, and attempted to simulate basketball . Each player controls two team members, a forward and a guard ; the ball can be passed between team members before shooting, and the ball has to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. The game was released in North America by Midway as TV Basketball , selling 1,400 arcade cabinets in the United States, a production record for Midway up until they released Wheels

12500-460: The popularity of Waluigi and dismissed the idea that Nintendo had purposefully excluded him due to disliking the character. Claire McNear of The Ringer described Waluigi as Nintendo's cult hero, but commented that his place in the Mario hierarchy of characters is tenuous and that, despite being a "pan-internet obsession", he is yet to appear in a mainline Mario game outside of spinoffs. Ian Walker of Kotaku highlighted that official artwork of

12625-477: The same time to hit a very powerful smash shot. The longer a button is pressed before contact is made with the ball, the stronger the shot will be. The control system allows players of all levels to become familiar with the mechanics of the game within a very short time, whilst also encouraging advanced players to take advantage of the variety of shots offered to come up with different strategies for winning points. A total of seven types of shot are possible using only

12750-475: The screen and only a small gap for the goal. Tomohiro Nishikado wanted to move beyond simple rectangles to character graphics, resulting in his development of a basketball game, Taito's TV Basketball , released in April 1974. It was the earliest use of character sprites to represent human characters in a video game. While the gameplay was similar to earlier ball-and-paddle games, it displayed images both for

12875-467: The second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after FPS Football ). The 1990s began in the 16-bit era , as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in particular became renowned for its sports video games, as it was more powerful than the NES and with Sega targeting an older audience than Nintendo's typically younger target demographic at

13000-461: The sport it emulated; previous titles either had one license or the other, but Tecmo Super Bowl was the first to feature real NFL players on real teams. Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of Madden on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the Madden Football series. During this time EA formed EA Sports ,

13125-501: The subgenre was further popularized by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater , an arcade-like skateboarding game where players were challenged to execute elaborate tricks or collect a series of elements hidden throughout the level. Tony Hawk's went on to be one of the most popular sports game franchises. Association football games became more popular in the 2000s. Konami's ISS series spawned the Pro Evolution Soccer ( PES ) series in

13250-614: The time. Basketball video games included EA's Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs (1991), which launched the NBA Live series. World Series Baseball (1994) introduced the "catcher-cam" perspective, launching the World Series Baseball series and becoming the first game in the Sega Sports line. In 1989, Electronic Arts producer Richard Hilleman hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design John Madden Football for

13375-427: The two franchises had narrowed by the mid-2000s. Waluigi Waluigi is a character in the Mario franchise. He plays the role of Luigi 's arch-rival and accompanies Wario in spin-offs from the main Mario series , often for the sake of causing mischief. He was created by Camelot employee Fumihide Aoki and was voiced from 2000 to 2022 by Charles Martinet , who described Waluigi as someone with

13500-535: The two games again will in turn unlock up to six new tennis courts in the N64 version. All Transfer Pak functionality was removed from subsequent digital re-releases of both games, though the additional characters and minigames are unlocked by default in the Nintendo Switch Online release of the GBC version. Other features, such as the Ring Tournament mode in the N64 version and multiplayer functionality in

13625-474: The two main buttons of the controller. These gameplay mechanics were later brought to the newer games of the Mario Tennis series . Matches support singles or doubles play. The Nintendo 64 version includes several gameplay modes. Exhibition allows players to compete in a single basic tennis match. In Tournament mode, players compete in singles or doubles elimination tournaments against computer-controlled opponents, with higher difficulties being unlocked each time

13750-546: The umpire, and individual player statistics. Sports games became more popular across arcades worldwide with the arrival of Konami 's Track & Field , known as Hyper Olympic in Japan, introduced in September 1983. It was an Olympic-themed athletics game that had multiple Olympic track-and-field events (including the 100-meter dash, long jump , javelin throw , 110-meter hurdles , hammer throw , and high jump ) and allowed up to four players to compete. It had

13875-416: Was a simulation game with statistics. In 1988, EA released Earl Weaver Baseball , developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI . In 1996 Computer Gaming World named EWB the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time,

14000-472: Was a skiing winter sports simulator that became a major success in arcades during the mid-1990s. This led to a wave of similar sports games capitalizing on its success during the late 1990s, from companies such as Sega , Namco, Konami and Innovative Concepts. In 1996, two snowboarding video games were released: Namco 's Alpine Surfer in the arcades, and the UEP Systems game Cool Boarders for

14125-410: Was about self-loathing. Inglehart said that when it was presented to Nintendo "nobody batted an eye" so he was surprised that the taunt was allowed to remain in the game without question. Waluigi is portrayed as a mischievous villain and an exaggerated mirror version of Luigi. He bears a large pink nose and crooked moustache. His stature is tall and his frame thin and lanky. He is the rival of Luigi and

14250-513: Was again excluded as a playable character but instead used as an example for destroying Assist Trophies during the gameplay reveal of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate . Waluigi makes minor appearances in other video games. In Game & Watch Gallery 4 , he is an opponent of Luigi in the Boxing game. He appears in Super Mario Maker as an unlockable Mystery Mushroom costume for Mario to wear in

14375-516: Was cancelled in 1997. Licensed basketball games began becoming more common by the early 1990s, including Sega's Pat Riley Basketball (1990) and Acme Interactive 's David Robinson's Supreme Court (1992) for the Sega Genesis, and Hudson Soft 's Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball (1991) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). EA followed Jordan vs. Bird: One on One (1988) with Lakers versus Celtics and

14500-464: Was conceived as a sidekick for Wario to team up with in the doubles matches of Mario Tennis . In an interview with Nintendo Dream , Shugo Takahashi said that he initially asked Nintendo to create a new character but was given instruction to develop a character at Camelot . The character's name was agreed from the beginning before his design was finalised. Initially the idea was to change one letter to make him similar to Wario, but Takahashi said that as

14625-485: Was echoed by Zack Zwiezen for Kotaku , who upon reviewing a demo for Mario Strikers: Battle League noted that Waluigi's characteristic swagger and "rose pose" featured prominently in his scoring animation. Henry Stockdale writing for TechRadar praised the game's visuals, particularly describing Waluigi's Hyper Strike involving placing a rose in his mouth as "the stuff of many Nintendo fans' dreams". Zack Zwiezen also expressed disappointment over Waluigi not appearing in

14750-509: Was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball and association football. Atari's sports games included Activision Tennis (1981). Sports video games experienced a resurgence from 1983. As the golden age of arcade video games came to an end, arcade manufacturers began looking for ways to reinvigorate

14875-447: Was nominated for the publication's 2001 "Best Game Boy Color Game" award, which went to Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages . Dutch magazine Power Unlimited gave the N64 version a score of 9.1 out of 10, calling it very addictive, especially with four players. Mario Tennis sold over 200,000 copies within two weeks of its release. It became the eighth best selling Game Boy Color game in Japan, with 357,987 copies sold. During

15000-474: Was not until the mid-1990s that 3D polygons were popularized in sports games. Sega 's arcade title Virtua Striker (1994) was the first association football game to use 3D graphics, and was also notable for its early use of texture mapping . Meanwhile, Sierra Online released American football title Front Page Sports Football in 1995 for the PC. The following year, Computer Gaming World named it twelfth of

15125-485: Was one of the two most well-received games at the September 1983 AM Show (along with Hyper Olympic ) for its graphics and gameplay. Another sports game with female player characters was Taito's Joshi Volleyball ( Big Spikers ) , which topped the Japanese table arcade cabinet chart in December 1983. Kaneko 's Roller Aces was a roller skating game played from a third-person perspective, while Technōs Japan released

15250-613: Was published under the same title in Western regions and as Mario Tennis GB in Japan. The N64 version was re-released on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console , and on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack , in 2010, 2015, and 2021 respectively; the GBC version was re-released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2014, and on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2024. The game uses

15375-550: Was released for the ZX Spectrum computer in 1982. Between 1981 and 1983, the Atari's VCS (2600) and Mattel's Intellivision waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars . Atari prevailed in arcade games and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton

15500-631: Was the only sports game among the top ten highest-earners. In 1980, Mattel 's Basketball for the Intellivision was the first basketball video game to be licensed by the National Basketball Association (NBA). On home computers, Microsoft 's Olympic Decathlon (1980) was one of the first sports-related programs to mix game and simulation elements, and was an early example of an Olympic track-and-field game. The first association football management simulation, Football Manager ,

15625-466: Was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direction and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. It was a landmark title for association football games, considered revolutionary for its trackball control system, its top-down perspective that allows players to see more of the pitch, and its trackball-based game physics . It provided the basis for later association football games such as MicroProse Soccer (1988) and

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