Mario Kart 64

The Good
What did I like? What didn't I like? The music is on par with all the other Mario games, in otehrword's, it's great, the graphic's are the best of it's time and even by today's standard's arn't to shabby, the control's are excellent and are easy to master, you can always improve and get better. The items are clever and cool, the levels are very well done and well designed and there are eight different character's to choose from to race is, each with their own pro's and con's. There are 16 racing levels plus 4 battle mode levels, where you shoot shells at each other or attack each other with other items and you have three balloons and lose one each time you get hit. You die when all your balloons are gone. You can play with up to 4 player's and it's a great game for people of all ages!

The Bad
I've mastered this game extremely well and even the Special Cup is easy to beat now. But whatever, it was still worth the money by far. Also, when playing with 3 or 4 player's there is no music and no GP, which sucks.

The Bottom Line
If you even kinda like Double Dash you'll love the N64 version!

The Good
This game is such an improvement of the first for the SNES back in 1992. The control stick provided smoother controls. The Multiplayer was fun when four people are playing. Most of the tracks were easier for kids and the Computer A.I was better.

The Bad
There could have been hidden characters but you can unlock mirror mode.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is... If your looking for a great N64 game for your collection then this is a must for every N64 owner and other games. I'm sure your friends will have fun with you too. If you want it. Your going to buy the cartridge for a cheap price, download the ROM or buy on the Wii Virtual Console.

The Good
Hey, is that Mario Kart? No way, dude! It's Mario Kart 64!

I should begin by saying that I once owned a Super Nintendo, and the only game I owned was Mario Kart. It was my all-time favorite game (well, at the time) and my friends and I would play it for hours on end. When we got bored with just racing, we'd play erm... "house". We'd pick a place in the level to declare our kingdom, and place a banana peel on it. Then we would leave our kingdom and attempt to "take" each other's peels. It was like a really weird capture the flag.

Ahem. We were only nine years old, I should point out. Maybe nine. Maybe older? I forget. Somewhere around that age.

But anyway, when the Nintendo 64 came out, I knew Mario Kart 64 would be there somewhere. It had to be. It had to come out, with its glorious 3D graphics and ten times the fun Mario Kart was.

Did Mario Kart 64 deliver? Well, in some ways. The graphics are, unquestionably, better. 3D this time around, with some neato course tricks. Like jumping over the river in one level and stuff. And, like in Mario Kart, there were levels that brought on the essence of the "home world" of some of the characters who were racing.

Four player multiplayer! Woweezowee!

New weapons! Whee!

The Bad
I once saw a video of "Mario Kart 2", which showed awesome graphics and a level in which took place entirely in one of those green pipes. The video featured the ability to drive up the walls of the pipe and down different passageways, into water, down waterfalls...it was sheer beauty, all taking place within one of those infamous blue pipes.

What the hell was that video anyway? Probably a hoax or something, because I never heard of it again.

Well, you can imagine my sheer disappointment when MK64 neither did not have those AWESOME graphics, not the pipe level, and certainly not the speeds of the video I saw. Instead, I got this nice-graphics-but-not-that-nice game, with very slow kart speeds and no awesome pipe level. In fact, most of the levels suck. Sure, they're 3D, and we're not stuck within its bounds by odd looking square blocks, but MK64 lost the charm it had with Mario Kart. It was just a prettier, but slower version of the classic.

Also, this was the first time I heard Princess Toadstool called "Peach". When the hell did that happen? Until that point, I always thought "Peach" was some odd sexual innuendo for Princess Toadstool.

The weapons were similar, with some improvements, but at the same time there were some disappointments. Like the fact that you couldn't drop bananas behind you. What gives? And some of the level design just plain sucks.

The Bottom Line
Mario Kart 64 is just a prettier, slower version of the original Mario Kart. It lacks the charm and replayability that made the first one such a classic. And the karts are disturbingly slow. Boo!