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• Last Update: April 14, 2012, at 02:05 PM
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Furious Mario Karting

Today I commemorate Mario Kart's unholy allegience with McDonald's by including ToastyFrog in his special unlockable kart, the Burgermeister 3000.

I have to say that I was really disappointed when I was assigned the Mario Kart DS review. After Double Dash!! I pretty much wanted nothing else to do with the series and I was fairly certain the DS sequel would have its work cut out for it just to claw its way to a 7.5 or so. Obviously, my preconceptions were completely wrong.

I still can't quite put my finger on what makes it work so well, but I'm still hooked... despite the fact that I'm supposed to be reviewing a passel of other less interesting games this weekend. It's not just me, though. I was really surprised at last week's Seattle event to see so many jaded, cynical media types completely hooked on the game as well. Sure, there was quite a bit of fanboy press in attendence, too, but even the pros were taking any excuse they could get to go head-to-head against one another. When they could have been talking to, say, Perrin Kaplan about Revolution strategies, or discussing localization philosophies with the Treehouse guys. Priorities, people, priorities.

For me, the ultimate proof has been closer to home. Namely, my girlfriend, who in all the time I've known her has avoided video games like the plague. She doesn't think any less of me for making my living from games, but at the same time she doesn't want anything at all to do with them. The sole exception has been when I needed her to be my opponent for a few rounds of multiplayer Flipnic, which she found completely pointless. But Mario Kart piqued her interest. Not only did she want to give it a try, she actually refused to give it up a few times when I needed to be playing it for the review.

(Despite never having played a video game since around the time of Donkey Kong, she finds 50cc far too easy and refuses to play on anything less than 100cc... and does a respectable job of it, too. However, my insistence that she's a natural gamer has been met with insistent denial.)

And therein, I think, is the greatest strength Mario Kart has to offer: Everyone can enjoy it, from the crustiest hardcore cynic to the most disinterested non-gamer. That doesn't happen too often.

Edit: In happier news, I've discovered that now that more people are getting their hands on Mario Kart DS besides developers, NOA employees and fellow idiot-savants of the games press, I'm actually doing a much better job of it. Be sure to look me up when you get the game... such as is possible.

Looks like Nintendo's servers are buckling under the strain of tens of thousands of DORKS logging on at once to get their race on. If you find this in any way surprising, you clearly have never experienced the launch of a new online game or service. Random matching is a bust at the moment, and even with two dozen people on my friends list that's a complete crapshoot, too. I managed to get online with Nich (he was standing right next to me and we logged on together) and later against Tycho, but for the most part the current MKDS online experience involves an awful lot of seeking and not much playing.

On the plus side, I continue to be stunned by the fact that Nintendo has crafted an online game that can be engrossing to the finish even when only two people are racing.

kartography

It's great to see MKDS friend codes begin trickling my way. After two weeks of racing strangers it'll be nice to be humiliated by those near and dear once more.

I've gone back and replayed the previous Mario Kart games lately to see if maybe I overrated MKDS. Not that I think I did, but I based some of my claims -- like, you know, "this is the best Mario Kart ever" -- on the tenuous foundation of memory. But now that I've revisited its predecessors, I see my claim was well-founded. In fact, MKDS may be the first good Mario Kart.

I was never too crazy about the original MK on Super NES, despite the fact that most people are frothingly mad about it. It always seemed like a fun diversion and I rented it on a few occasions, but at the time I preferred to give my attention to Super Mario World, which was far more polished and substantial an experience. I'm fairly certain that any residual devotion to the original still lingering in the gaming community is entirely due to (1) nostalgia and (2) a monomaniacal obsession with the Feather power-up.

It's gone, children. Please, let it go. Let the Feather rest in peace.

On the other hand, I loved Mario Kart 64. The polygonal tracks were vastly more interesting than the Mode 7 flatness of the original, and the characters felt more differentiated. And powersliding was frankly the only way to travel. MK64 got me through many long hours working on my university newspaper -- midnight rolled around and we were still plugging away at the deadline, but there was always time for me to trounce my coworkers on Moo Moo Farm.

Unfortunately MK64 is really, really awful in retrospect (i.e., having replayed it). The graphics are miserable, the control is loose, the A.I. is dismal and overall the game doesn't hold up to the ravages of time. At all. MK64 is that girl you thought was perfect for you ten years ago because everything just clicked, but upon meeting her at your high school reunion you realize she was stupid and shallow and had an annoying laugh and you secretly feel embarrassed that you were kind of hoping you could hook up again.

Well, maybe that's going too far. Nah, it sucks.

The GBA outing seemed OK at the time, but that's because the concept of good handheld games was novel back then. In actuality, it had the same crappy, slippery controls as the original MK. And rubberband AI. And, yes, no Feather. Shut up about the stupid Feather already. Double Dash!!, on the other hand, was just bad: Overly gimmicky and complicated, and almost impossible to master playing solo. (The 150cc racers cheat miserably, and without a copilot to swipe goodies and target opponents you're pretty much boned.)

So, in short, Mario Kart kind of sucks. Except MKDS. It's only taken 13 years, but they finally got it right. So get a copy already... I've been dying for people to play against.

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