Mario Golf: World Tour will be available this Summer

Mario certainly loves his sport. Over the years he's tried his hand at football, basketball and tennis to name a few - he's even competed in the Olympics with a certain blue hedgehog.

One Mario sports title many people are fond of is Mario Golf and this Summer will see a 3DS iteration of the series emerge in the form of Mario Golf: World Tour.

More details on the portable game emerged during today's Nintendo Direct presentation, with the main announcements involving online modes and community features.

As the name suggests, you'll be able to take your game online by connecting your 3DS to the internet. You can compete against others either in single exhibition matches or in "large scale" tournaments and depending on how you do you'll pick up or lose points. This scoring system is designed so you can tee-off against people with roughly the same ability, just in case a novice comes up against a 3DS wielding Tiger Woods.

There will also be a community feature, similar to the one found in Mario Kart 7. This allows you to connect and play with like-minded people or create and recruit others to communities based on particular themes.

Of course, Mario Golf: World Tour isn't all based online, you'll still be able to play local multiplayer too.

You can also set special conditions for joining these matches. Satoru Iwata gave three examples: one where you play with traditional golf rules with no special shots allowed, one where you compete in short courses at certain times and you can also create a tournament where you can only play as Luigi. There certainly was a lot of Luigi love in today's presentation; the New Super Mario Bros. U DLC called New Super Luigi U was also detailed by Nintendo's president.

What are your thoughts on Mario Golf: World Tour? Will you be taking your game online? Let us know in the comments section below.