Mario Kart DS

The Good
What's not to like about Mario Kart? It's built for fun from the ground up. This incarnation is still the staple of DS gaming three years after its release, and is the highest-ranking DS game on GameRankings.com (at 91.8%). Online play can get frustrating for casual players due to the overwhelming dominance of skilled snakers, but if you can't handle them then you might consider mastering the powerslide feature yourself, perhaps in single player mode.

Very well-designed tracks, loads of options (e.g. engine size) and unlockables (new characters and cars), excellent online capabilities, and even some advanced maneuvers for elite players make this as rich and compelling gaming experience as could be hoped for in this present era of video gaming.

The Bad
Eventually you may tire of this game and never want to play it again, due to the cutesy kid-oriented design ethos that is inevitable in every Mario product. I've reached saturation point twice in two years, but I do keep coming back, a little more skilled in online play than the last time.

The prevalence of 'snakers' (what some consider cheaters who employ the game's boost system to drive about 20% faster than usual) in online play makes this a bit frustrating for the casual gamer who takes winning very seriously.

And for the snaker, it can be frustrating when everyone you play quits on you, and you are deprived of your win points -- although a clever player will keep their opponents connected by not getting too far ahead, and even letting them win a race or two.

The Bottom Line
The number one reason to buy a Nintendo DS. I probably played it for about a thousand hours before finally getting tired of it, and I am very finicky about what games I spend my time on. And, I am now back to playing it about an hour a day. Great game, endless replay value, overall an outstanding title and well worth the $50.

However, if you are not all that skilled at video games that reward reflexes, dexterity, and lightning-fast judgement, then you may want to start with Nintendogs or Tetris as your first DS purchase.

The Good
Despite it's incredibly popularity, the only Mario Kart game I've played before was the original Super Mario Kart for the SNES. The game were good but didn't age very well due to pseudo-3D graphics and bad control. Since then it seems Nintendo likes to release one Mario Kart for each of their consoles, each using the same formula. Mario Kart DS is that, the DS version of Mario Kart. And man, I was surprised how good such a simple game is.

There is a lot of different gameplay modes, in some you have to do "missions" or you can play with a friend trough the Wi-Fi connexion (something I wasn't able to test yet unfortunately). The more interesting mode (when playing alone) is of course the Grand Prix mode. You have to race through 4 "Nitro" Grand Prix and 4 "Retro" Grand Prix. Each Nitro race have 4 brand new circuits ("Nitro" is another name for the DS), and each retro race is made of already known circuits, one from the SNES, one from the N64, one from the GBA and one from Gamecube.

You pick one of the characters from the Mario series, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Wario, Toad, Yoshi (my little favourite), Bowser, Donkey Kong and some other unlockable (why is Donkey Kong here ? Is the original Donkey Kong considered as a part of the Mario series ?), and you race against 7 other CPU controlled characters. There is 3 difficulty levels, 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, each one being harder than the previous, but allowing you to drive faster and is overall more fun.

You basically try to drive as crazy as you can and you hit boxes to collect items that allows you to attack other racers in many ways, while avoiding the attacks of other racers. Different characters and different karts allows you to drive differently, some characters are heavier, slow to accelerate, but can reach higher speeds than most (this is the case of Bowser, Donkey Kong and Wario). The light, high accelerations characters are great but easily get ejected out of the road by stronger characters (Yoshi and Toad). Some characters can be more suited for some circuits than others (typically in races with long straight lines it'd better to take Wario, but in races with lot of vicious turns Toad should be better).

After completing a circuit, you are rewarded by some number of points variable in function of where you are ranked (ideally you'd want to be 1st and get all 10 points). After all 4 circuits the sum of all your points should rank you in the first 3 to get a cup, bronze, silver or gold. You must get all gold cups in order to unlock the following Grand Prix (it's not required to be always first on each race, all that matters is the sum of your points).

The graphics are really good, most 3D games on the DS looks really bad and polygonal, but here is looks better than average, all characters are cute and there is a great use of both screen, one for the 3D view and the other for a 2D map. There is even cutscenes that shows 3D on both screens at once, which is something extremely rare.

The music is pretty good too, and the voices for the characters are absolutely awesome and very cute (the characters have a couple of joy and despair scream each, which sounds very cute). The sound effects are in full surround stereo, so when hearing a kart's motor or a character screaming you hear the sound exactly where it's source is positioned if you have headphones, which is awesome. There is remixed music from the SNES version for the SNES courses, etc... (I just tough I'd mention that) which is cool, and of course brand new music for the brand new courses.

The Bad
Something that bothers me is that when being ranked it doesn't matter how well you did, only how much you are ranked. If you are 2nd, you could be way ahead of the 1st, or be ex-echo with him, it doesn't matter, you get the same number of points. Often the ranking is tight, almost unfair.

The CPU seems to almost cheat sometimes, when the race begins I need some time to accelerate (even if I accelerate while there is still the countdown), but CPU controlled characters goes at an incredible speed instantly. How well the CPU characters takes some turns is outstanding, but sometimes they do it terribly too (fortunately for you). Probably Nintendo coded an imperfect behavior on purpose, which is a good thing, else the game wouldn't be beatable !

Item attacks are cool, but often unfair and exaggerated. The worst is a missile that systematically hit the 1st racer. This is very beneficial for the 2nd or the 3rd, but it's really frustrating if you are the 1st as you can easily be 6th in the matter of seconds if you get unlucky. Overall I'd say the game isn't too easy, but the results will depend more on luck than skill, which is not a good thing.

The Bottom Line
Mario Kart DS is an extremely good and fun game, but it's drawback is that it doesn't last very long until you've seen all there is to see. Once you complete all races of all difficulties, and unlocked all there is to unlock, the only thing you can do it to try to get better scores or to try the secondary playing modes, which are much less fun.

I guess I should find some friends with the game to race with, but then I'd have to figure how the Wi-Fi connexion works. So I'd say it's a game worth getting, it's very good and very fun, but it's not worth paying too much because it doesn't last for a very long time until you'll see everything.

The Good
It's been a long time since F-Zero X arrives to the videogames world, it was the first game featuring the graphical mode called "Mode-7" and inspired an entire world making new racing games. Mario Kart maybe was influenced by F-Zero X, not directly, but it was the first one and the similarities are there.

Mario Kart DS is probably a must-have. The game features many circuits, a lot of cars to choose, many characters, different cubic capacities (as difficulty levels) and a perfect multiplayer/wi-fi system. Mario Kart DS is a great game, and maybe the best of the series, with new circuits in different tournaments and special tournaments featuring old circuits from other games of the series, Mario Kart for Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo Game Cub. It looks like a self-tribute for the series, and it doesn't matter that they're the same circuits as before, because they're as funny as always.

The game works as always, it's a racing game, your goal is to finish the first and win the championship, nothing more. You can use special objects to do that, from the classic shells to the useful star.

The game includes some new features, now it's not so easy to start with a nitro, you'll have to master your skill to perform that special nitro, and you'll need to take some time to do it. Skidding is now very important, much more than ever.

Beside the main championship, you have missions which really suits with the essence of the game. There are 6 levels with many missions, and you can unlock a special level with new missions if you achieve a star in the previous ones. That mode increases the game's length, and the perfect multiplayer system makes this game a must have without any doubt.

The Bad
As I said, to master the starting nitro is something difficult. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, but some players may prefer the old system. Mario Kart DS is a simple game, playable by anyone, and that's something that should be in every aspect of the game.

Objects to use are funny, but when you're in the first position (also in the second position) you can only take some determined objects like bananas or green shells, and it's a little boring. You'd rather be in the last positions to take powerful objects during some time of the race. Maybe some new objects utilizable for the first positions too could make the game much more dynamic.

Not a bad thing, but something bad for the series... Maybe they're at the top of their possibilities, and maybe we will never see again a Mario Kart as good as this one, because the game has many nice features and it looks like nothing more can be done with that, just new circuits, new objects or new characters, but the essence is still the same and it cannot be modified anymore.

The Bottom Line
A must-have, one of the best racing games ever made for a portable system. It's funny from the beginning to its end, funny to be played alone or with someone. Take your shells and bananas and infest the circuits with them!