SUMMARY
Mario Kart features everyone's favorite Mario characters from back in the day racing around mystical lands on go-karts. The interesting twist here is that all the characters are able to throw objects from their karts at the other racers to impede their progress. The characters race and race and race across 16 levels, 4 at a time, and after every 4 level conquest, the victor is given a neat trophy.
GAMEPLAY
Going into the game, I figured it would be a rather cheesy game, which I judged by the characters I saw, the levels (Moo Moo Farm, Rainbow Road, etc), and the awfully bubbly graphics running rampant through the game. This was before I played. As cheesy as it all is, the actual gameplay is seriously intense, especially in any multiplayer mode, of which there are 3: Grand Prix, Vs, and Battle. The room turned blue as my bros and I exchanged some of the gnarliest insults the world has ever heard, because things got so heated up. Neck and neck 300 yards from the finish line, so close to it, and all of a sudden, you slip on a banana peel and lose it all. Yes, you did hear right, banana peel. Characters can throw/use various objects such as banana peels, turtle shells of various colors and functions, boxes that grant said objects that are actually explosives, use stars to make themselves super fast and invincible, mushrooms to boost their speed, all kinds of good stuff. It's a very innovative feature for a game of its time, and it certainly kept things interesting, as did the ability to drift the kart around corners and the onomatopoeias that arose after a large jump, like say the one in the Royal Raceway across a lake, was cleared. And the graphics aren't so bad for a game made in 1997.
As expected from most racing games, there isn't really much of a story here. All the characters from the older NES Mario games just instinctively knew to gather at one particular spot and race their color co-ordinated go karts, which is okay, because the game itself is rather enjoyable. The races, as noted are very intense at times, and it's all good fun, but I could understand how this game could become dull. This may just be my apathy for racing games in general, but even though it's way cool to play, driving through the same 16 tracks over and over again can only be so fun. On a more positive note, the battle mode of multiplayer took me by surprise. Each character gets three balloons tied to the back of their karts, and four characters are dropped off in one of four locations, and you pick up objects and attempt to hit the other player with them, which of course makes one of the balloons break off, and the last one with a balloon attached to their vehicle wins. A neat enough little mini game to bust out at parties and have a laugh over. But even that could get old soon enough. I'd wager $5 that by the end of the next hour, I'll be bored with it, fun as it currently is.
Then, roughly 50 minutes later...
GAMEPLAY
Yeah, so, didn't even make the full hour. The game gets old a little bit. I've already been to all of the worlds, I have been through multiplayer a few times, I've won some, I've lost some, and I'm kind of done with the game for a bit. This isn't to say that I don't like the game, I haven't sworn it off for life, it's just so very limited. There isn't much to explore in the game, there isn't anything to unlock that I can see from here, one just plays the same things over and over. Why couldn't team Nintendo have done something, anything, to make this go just a little bit farther?
Boredom and disillusionment aside, it is a fun little racing game, which one would imagine would make a very good game to have on at a little party. There are still some solid neck and neck moments in the game, and multiplayer is of course awesome, so there's at least some replay value in it. Racing hectically through Yoshi Valley on narrow roads with huge cliff sides on either side is still a rather daunting feat, and the air still turns blue every time my lead is spoiled by a blue shell. All in all, the gameplay lacks depth.
DESIGN
There are good points to the design, and there are bad points. On the good camp, there is the very cool ability to shoot shells or bananas or use stars in the game to drastically affect the development of any race. This also has an effect on social interaction in gameplay, as an entire group can decide to just shoot shells at one guy the whole time and better their odds. Also innovative was changing level difficulty based on engine size. Easy meant that all characters drove with a 50cc engine, and hard meant that everyone drove a 150cc engine. And who could forget the battle mode, which keeps entire rooms of frat boys entertained for hours at a time. The levels are all a little bit different, each with their various pitfalls, themes, and shortcuts to keep players guessing. Finally, the bright, rounded feel of the graphics appeals to all ages, a great move for marketing.
On the other hand, there is no real reward system. Once a Grand Prix race is won, you get your trophy, and that's all. No story progression or characters to unlock. Just a trophy. Also lacking is a sense of challenge. There's some in-level conflict between racers, but unless an actual person challenges me to a race, there seems to be no desire to pick up a controller and drive in circles with the computer. But that's all. Still fun to pick up now and again for social reasons, but that's all.
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