Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Review - Richard finally concludes his pondering of this 'quirky' racer...

It's from Nintendo. It's Mario Kart. Of course it's good. There, I said it. But is it good enough? What do I mean by that? Well like it or not I think gamers demand more from Nintendo than they do from other developers. Nintendo is certainly more dependent on it's first party titles than the other major console manufacturers. The lack of third party support for the GameCube means that the release schedule is often quite barren and so when the big games do come out it's important that they satisfy the audience. Double Dash certainly has all the elements one would expect in the franchise. That is also its main problem. It's exactly what I expect, an update of the franchise for the GameCube. For the supposed premier racing gaming that is meant to set the standard for others, Mario Kart comes across as unoriginal and ultimately feels like a bit of let down.

The first thing you'll notice is the speed, or the lack thereof. The three speeds on offer are unsurprisingly 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, but none of them feel particularly fast. Later on you can unlock a slightly faster mirror mode. Though quite slow it is by no means an easy game. To win a race on the higher speeds you will need to master the tracks. The karts handle in a quintessential Mario kart fashion, where the only way to really fly around a corner is to skid round it. The little jump that featured on the N64 has gone and now you simply squeeze one of the shoulder buttons to start slip slidin' away. If you waggle the thumb stick while skidding you can cause the sparks under your kart to go blue, then when released you will boost out of the turn.

Your choice of characters effects your top speed and acceleration. Larger characters are faster but slower to get going and vice versa. The big change this time around being that you choose two characters instead of one. It means you can opt for a balance in terms of speed and acceleration or favour one over the other. Once you have chosen your characters you then pick from a selection of karts, all of which look like they have been depressingly modelled from the Early Learning Centre. Perhaps the biggest influence your character choice has is the unique power up that they can obtain. The usual assortment of items that we've come to know from the series are all present from mushroom boosts to turtle shells. Each character however has a special power up. For example Yoshi has an egg that attacks the person in front and then leaves bonuses. Daisy has a shield that can absorb attacks. Mario can shoot out five fireballs in a spread. Each special power up is shared between two characters, like Mario and Luigi, so diversity is the key. Two characters also means that two power ups can be carried at any one time with the Z-button switching between each one.

Of course it's multiplayer that has always been the selling point with Mario Kart and Double Dash proving no exception. The game mechanics that worked so well previously are still sound. With the power ups helping to level the field between players somewhat so that the better ones are given to those trailing in the rankings. To stop players holding onto a bonus for an entire race, as sometimes happened in the N64 version, it is now possible to steal them from other players. This is done either by boosting into a character, skidding into them or hitting them when you've activated the star power up. And though you can no longer hold bananas behind you indefinitely like a shield, if you are about to be hit by a homing shell a visual warning gives you just enough time to try and block it. With two characters to a kart there is also a mode that allows you and a friend to team up, with one driving and the other responsible for power ups. I'm afraid I found it to be a bit of a gimmick and not much fun for the person who isn't driving because you have little to do. I wasn't able to test the LAN play unfortunately, but I certainly know that some people love it. If you don't balk at having to purchase a few rather pricey broadband adaptors then I'm certain you won't worry about buying the game. I will say this though, aside from this feature there is nothing else in Mario Kart to suggests that it could not have been a much needed launch title as it was with the N64.