For this week, I’ll be going back to the world of Nintendo with a game that almost everyone knows about: Mario Kart. Mario Kart shares some very similar characteristics to my favorite game, Super Smash Brothers, in that it is a multiplayer game that brings together the whole cast of Mario characters into a unique setting in competition with each other. However, that is mostly where the similarities end. Mario Kart is a 3D, third person racing game, whereas Super Smash Brothers is a 2D fighting game. The game that I’ll be talking about for the most part, Mario Kart: Double Dash, was released on the Gamecube. It was the main game in the series that I played and definitely my favorite; I also played the sequel on the Wii, but I haven’t yet played Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, which I’ve heard is fantastic. Overall, most entries in the series have the same basic gameplay elements. The goal of Mario Kart, as would be expected of a racing game, is to come in first place. What makes it so fun, though, is how you get to the finish line.
One of the best and most characteristic things about Mario Kart is the graphics. The maps and the characters are bright and cartoony, as would be expected from a game in the Mario universe. Each map in the game is inspired by a different character in the game; Yoshi Circuit, for example, features a large Yoshi-shaped-loop of a racetrack on Yoshi’s island (from the Yoshi’s Island games) and there is another map that goes through a jungle on the side of a mountain called DK Mountain (from the Donkey Kong series of games). These maps are nostalgic for people who have played the source games or have a particular affinity for a certain character, and the wide variety of maps keeps the game fresh and makes sure you don’t get bored.
The main component of the game, as would be expected, is the gameplay of each race. In Double Dash, each player picked two characters and one kart (I always went with Baby Mario and Paratroopa whenever they were available). Once everyone made their selections, you could pick a map and start the race, which would have a total of 8 competitors. Once you started the race, the objective was simple: get around the map faster than everyone else. On the way there are various stage hazards that could slow you down such as giant rocks that squish your character or stretches without walls where you could fall off the sides. These were usually secondary to the player-created hazards, though. On every map there were certain areas where mystery boxes would spawn across the road. By driving into a mystery box, your character would acquire an item and then use that item to gain some advantage. Red shells, for example, would home in on and crash whoever was directly in front of you, stars would make you invincible, a Chain-chomp would spawn a giant Chain-chomp that would drag your kart along and attack whoever was in front of you. By far the most iconic item is the blue shell, which instantly targets whoever is in first place and explodes, knocking them into the air for several seconds.
This leads into one of my only complaints about the game. Once my friends and I put enough hours in and got good enough at the game to always beat the computer opponents and essentially play every map perfectly, the game reaches a point where who wins comes down to who gets better items from the mystery boxes. And here lies the issue: the quality of items available in the item pool is totally dependent on your current position in the race. If you’re in first place, you are limited almost exclusively to banana peels, green shells, and mystery boxes, which are mostly defensive or trap items. As you move farther back in the positions, the items get more and more powerful, and people from 6th-8th place get access to the strongest items. From a game design perspective, this makes it fairer for people who are bad at the game, as they can use the items to get a leg up and get back into a competitive spot. Eventually, though, this reaches a point where it feels like you’re being punished for being good at the game. Everyone likes to win, but when you only get to play with the fun items in the game if you’re losing, it becomes more fun to play if you start out in the back of the pack, use the strong items for a while, then eventually move up and win the game. This problem was even further exacerbated in the Wii version of the game, and there was even a song released by parody artist Alex Day called “I Hate Mario Kart Wii” which features the lyrics “This is the only game I’ve ever played / Where winning just feels lame / And losing is where all the fun takes place / And there are no red shells for me / All I have is apathy for this neverending, three-lap funless race” (Alex Day. I Hate Mario Kart Wii. DFTBA Records, 2010. MP3).
That said, though, these complaints are relatively minor. Mario Kart is an incredibly fun game to play, especially with a group of four friends, and can lead to some very fun and ridiculous suggestions. I would highly encourage trying it out, especially if you can try the new Wii U version!