The generation before, Golf and Tennis on the original Game Boy were admirably produced examples of handheld gaming. With just two Golf courses, it was course layout as much as delicate controls that made the former both fiercely demanding and highly addictive.

The second generation brought a fully fledged RPG, a host of courses, tutorials and objectives to the game. Like the GBC Mario Tennis, the characters you became at the academy could be transfered to the N64 and played against anyone in the console world. Experience points counted, too, and on Mario Golf GBC a two-player mode was available via the link cable as well as through alternating turns on a single machine.

Here again you can link to your GameCube Mario Golf, but even for Gameplanet, which prefers the likes of Links 2004, the GBA version is such a complete game in its own right that there really is no need to link up at all.

At its heart is a range of reasonably well-designed courses and a simple yet versatile and effective swing system. Although and RPG title, the career and story are overall too time-consuming a method of imparting hints and tips and minigames. Successfully completing tournaments and challenges opens up more and more courses which can be accessed via the main menu and saves travelling around in the story world, where experience points help build a pair of golfers who can be used seperately or together for alternating shots in a single-player round.

Developing your characters adds control, height, power and accuracy to their shots, while their fade or draw tendencies can also be adjusted (or neutralised). It's not much of a reward for the initial chore of taking out the beginner's competitions, but fortunately the golf itself is better than any other handheld series to date.

As well as the common game inclusions of stroke, match, skins and such, alternative play modes are also on offer. A slot-machine club selection mode allows up to three clubs per hole, and a gate challenge mode adds trememdously to the game by requiring you to pass the ball through strategically placed flags along the fairways.

The swing modes of console and PC golf games have spoilt us over the years with true analogue functionality and consequences. Mario Golf and its forebears have always been demanding when it comes to the high-risk shots, but anyone with a decent mental metronome will have no trouble getting shots within the impact zone of GBA Mario Golf's three-point swing system. For the most part courses are interesting but not terribly demanding. As always, putting counts the most when it comes to your stroke count, and a decent variation in surface level, identified by variously orientated and lengthed arrows, is realistic if not as immersive as the demanding Game Boy original.

Physics are well implemented and the game utilises a healthy dose of ball roll on fairways and greens. Two levels of topspin and backspin are available via combinations of the A and B buttons, and fade and draw shots can be set along the swing meter impact zone.

It's hard to expect more from Mario Golf: Advance Tour than its predecessors, and in that respect this update has about all you could want in a handheld sports title. If the courses had been more difficult, this would be a must-have GBA title. However, with few other original GBA games of this calibre around, Advance Tour still gets our recommendation for anyone interested in the genre. Sports, that is - forget about the RPG.