Mario Power Tennis is a sports game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the GameCube in 2004. The game is the sequel to the Nintendo 64 title Mario Tennis, and is the third game in the Mario Tennis series. The game was re-released for the Wii in 2009. It incorporates multiple characters, themes, and locations from the Mario series. The game includes standard tennis matches, but contains variants that feature different scoring formats and objectives. The game consists of 18 playable characters, each categorised by their style of play and each with a pair of unique moves known as "Power Shots". Power Tennis was developed simultaneously with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, and the pair shared similar technology and concepts with each other during production. Such similarities include an emphasis on the Mario theme in characters and settings as well as alternative game modes such as "Ring Shot". The game was positively received in general, attaining an aggregate score of 81 percent from GameRankings and 80 percent from Metacritic. Critics praised the game's depth and variety, but criticised the Power Shot animations, which could not be skipped.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Power_Tennis

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1793:

French Revolution: The Royalist counterrevolutionary army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Savenay, although fighting continued in the War in the Vendée for years afterward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vend%C3%A9e

1888:

During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

1913:

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a central banking system of the United States, the Federal Reserve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act

1938:

A South African fisher discovered the first living specimen of a coelacanth, long believed to be extinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth

1954:

Drs. Joseph Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison performed the first successful kidney transplant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_transplantation

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

relict: 1. Something which, or someone who, survives or remains after the loss of others (compare relic). 2. (archaic) The surviving member of a married couple; a widow or widower. 3. (biology, ecology) A species, organism or ecosystem which was once widespread but which is now found only in a few areas: some think the Loch Ness monster is a relict from the age of dinosaurs. 4. (geology) A structure or other feature which has survived from a previous age: dark rims are a relict of a primary interaction between basalt and seawater. 5. (linguistics) A word or language which survives as an archaicism. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/relict

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.   --Norman Maclean https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean