If any party game series defined the late 1990s, it’s certainly Mario Kart.
With fast action, intuitive controls and a sharp learning curve, the original 1992 Super Mario Kart was a solid racer, and it left its mark as one of Super Nintendo’s most memorable releases. Its sequel, Mario Kart 64, lifted the series from solid to sublime. Players could duel up to three friends, hurling turtle shells and banana peels with negligence or malice in true 3-D environments that offered nearly flawless gameplay, indisputably granting the title classic status in its own right. (Also in the Mario Kart family is the Cousin Oliver of the series, 2001’s Mario Kart: Super Circuit, a Game Boy Advance release.)
Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, the GameCube sequel to the series, looks to uphold the franchise’s fine legacy of player-friendliness, intense grab-you-by-the-seat-of-your-overalls action and all-around racing fun.
For the uninformed video game aficionado (in this case, someone who has appreciated video games for the last decade, but lived deep enough in a castle teeming with pits of lava not to know the Kart series), playing a round of Mario Kart starts with picking a driver from a selection of characters from Nintendo lore. Once the race starts, metal-frame go-carts careen around a race track littered with five-foot-wide pipes, jumping moles, monkeys that throw coconuts at unassuming driversby, and other vehicular non sequiturs.
Moreover, drivers can contribute to the mayhem by collecting items from prize boxes clustered around each course, and use some of them to pump their own kart’s performance, or to throw objects at opponents’ vehicles in an attempt to impede their progress. For someone steeped in the tradition of the Mario franchise and who enjoys multiplayer action, Mario Kart is the very manifestation of fun.
Double Dash!! is a variation on most of the above themes. The most obvious change is the increase from one to two drivers per cart. While the ingenious new system leaves the learning curve a little more arduous, and there’s much more to keep track of than in previous incarnations of the game, Dash more than compensates by adding considerable depth to the gameplay.
Players select two characters — one driver and one gunner, who can swap roles on the fly — and a go-cart. Characters include the omnipresent Mario, Luigi and (Princess) Peach to relative newcomers like Waluigi and Daisy to throwbacks to earlier Mario adventures like Donkey Kong and the real fossil of the game, Super Mario Bros. 2’s Birdo. (Which go-cart players can choose depending on the drivers they select.) Even better, two players can team up and each take control of a single character, splitting the driving and gunning responsibilities for a cart.
There’s more to drivers than weight class now, too, adding strategic depth to character selection: There are some items that only specific characters can score. In the regular GP (grand prix) racing mode, only Koopa Troopa (“turtle” in the uninitiated vernacular) and Koopa Paratroopa (“flying turtle”) have access to the powerful three-shell items, and (Princess) Peach and Daisy reinforce the Mario series’ overstated gender roles with the useful heart items that absorb weapons fired at the cart, letting that driver use them.
Still, there’s not so much to keep track of that a new player can’t blindly pick a pair of characters, start playing, and be comfortable with the game in 10 minutes.
Like earlier games in the series, Double Dash!! will probably be best remembered as a classic, masterfully executed party game. Using broadband adapters, players can hook up GameCubes and televisions in myriad permutations, allowing up to eight single drivers or 16 teamed-up players to compete in real time. Yet, unlike some titles where single-player modes are just a shell to make essentially multiplayer games more accessible — say, Dead or Alive 3 — Mario Kart’s solo play looks as robust as ever.
According to Nintendo, there’s more to unlock in this game than in any of its predecessors. This begs the question: Is there a Rainbow Road in Double Dash!!?
“There may or may not be,” a Nintendo representative said, and added something about wanting to keep his job.
The highly recommended Double Dash!! is slated for a Nov. 17 release.
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