Mario Kart 64

The Good
First of all if you've never played Super Mario Kart, go and pick it up. Seriously, it's so cheap these days you'd be silly to not have that must have piece of nostalgic brilliance alongside Illusion of Time, Super Mario World and Super Turrican.

Conceived originally as Super Mario Kart R and featuring Magikoopa some tweaking was employed and the finished product was released to pretty unanimous praise. It's easy to see why the game was initially praised. It's incredibly addictive and you won't be able to render yourself from the Nintendo 64 controller until you have had your fill of every track the game has to offer.

I have never been so compelled to stay up to ungodly hours, a bottle of beer in my hand, my friends by my sides on the couch. Raccuous laughter until the sun came up. Absolutely magical.

That's where the magic in this game lies. It really brings people together to enjoy themselves with some of the best multiplayer gaming ever produced.

Outside of the multiplayer there is a fleshed out single player mode. There are four cups to participate in with tracks that gradually increase in complexity as you complete each concurrent one. They are based loosely on characters or places featured in earlier Mario games and while imagination in one might be quite apparent in others there is no imagination at all. In general though, they are quite interesting and fun to drive around on.

Speaking of driving. The racing mechanics are improved, obviously, over the original Super Mario Kart. Each racer, like before, has their own statistics but within weight classes the changes are more or less cosmetic.

Items are much more potent this time around with a selection of items that might displace someone from first or form a shield of shells around your racer.

The graphics in Mario Kart 64 are simple, but traditionally the simplicity of the graphics in Mario games has been charming and it is no different here. Environments are richly detailed and the bright, vibrant colours give everything that warm, cartoon like quality that Mario games exude in spades. It's hard to fault the graphics when they are so stylised, it's like calling the art director a failure for trying to make things look a little different, or in this case; consistent. Kudos.

The Bad
Mario Kart 64 comes apart in only one instance; single play. When you're playing the Grand Prix mode and you're racing on the highest difficulty the AI will constantly ruin you. It stops being fun. When you see racers you blazed past using a golden mushroom rocket up behind you for absolutely no reason you begin to resent the game for cheating.

Rubber banding is cheating, in every sense of the word. In fact, at the climax of the last few races the only way you're going to beat them is by constantly restarting, or luck. Whatever works for you. The dire frustration I felt seemingly getting absolutely nowhere despite memorising every last turn and straight of a course almost ruined the game for me.

Put the difficulty back a couple of notches to 50CC and it's a completely different game. I don't know how they ruined the AI so badly.

The music is pretty hit and miss. Most of the time you don't even notice it, but when you do it's either sounding awful or good. It's really inconsistent.

Saving a ghost run of your best times requires the use of almost an entire controller pak. Buying a new controller pak just for Mario Kart 64 is a little ridiculous. It's like Knights of the Old Republic using up an entire Memory Unit or Jet Set Radio using an entire VMU to store Graffiti.

The Bottom Line
Playing Mario Kart 64, in any context, you're guaranteed to have a good time. With friends, it is an absolute gem of multiplayer mayhem with some brilliant arena's, addicting game modes and outstanding replay value on a whole.

Single player is inconsistent and unbalanced. While fun on lower difficulties when playing on higher difficulties the rubber banding of opposing racers becomes such an issue that it begins to suck the fun right out of the experience.

Balance issues aside, this is still a brilliant game. It looks fantastic, features really solid control and is packed with features, tracks and extras.

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
Very solid racer, great tracks

The Bad
Getting hit by many items in a row.

The Bottom Line
Part of me was dreading replaying this. I have a lot of fond childhood memories of Mario Kart 64, but is it’s something that still holds up today? Mario Kart has changed so much since then.

After actually playing Mario Kart 64 again, the amount of changes to Mario Kart over the years actually keeps Mario Kart 64 still hugely enjoyable – the newer games aren’t simply better, they’re all quite different. The simplicity of Mario Kart 64 really helps it stand out from the others, and the handing still feels great.

My biggest criticism of Mario Kart 64 is the lack of singleplayer modes, just GP races and time trial, you can’t even pick single races, but most Mario Karts have similar issues. There is a mirror mode to unlock (which has the true version of Toad’s Turnpike) by completing all GPs on the highest difficulty, but that’s about it.

Mario Kart 64’s true wonder is in the multiplayer mode, which is still a lot of fun. The weapons make it hectic, but also allow people to catch up. You can spend hours and hours just playing races and I really like that you just pick a race and play, you’re not forced to do a tournament or anything like that.

Battle mode was also amazing in this game, and has not been properly replicated since (with newer games favouring points-based rather than elimination). When a player has been eliminated, they turn into a bomb and can try and screw over a player of their choosing. This wouldn’t work in a more serious setting, but for Mario Kart, it’s perfect.

Mario Kart 64 is still an immense joy to play, and is still worth going back to due to how different other Mario Kart games are. It really does deserve a re-release with widescreen and nicer textures, but without changing too much.

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
It's a great multiplayer game. The courses are wonderfully designed and they have cool special items. The battle mode is also fun with 4 people. You can't go wrong with Mario and Bowser racing each other.

The Bad
The single player game becomes boring after a short while. If you play with 3 or 4 players there aren't any computer opponents. I think it would be a huge plus to have computer opponents in the 4 player mode.

The Bottom Line
Don't get this game if you don't plan to play it with your friends.

The Good
The controls are just as fluent as I remember them to be, there is no awkward turns or stiffness at all. Most if not all other racing games I have on the Nintendo 64 have a few control-related flaws, but I can't complain here. One thing that annoys me though (I think it has something to do with my cartridge) is that my character is sometimes hit by an invisible obstacle, costing me precious time.

There are not a lot of stages, but the ones we have are very detailed and polished. It is really cool if you know where to find all the secret shortcuts and how to avoid dangerous areas. Each stage also feels different and has it's own music, compare this to Waverace 64 or Diddy Kong Racing where every stage has the same feel to it, isn't this much better.

Fighting each other in the four versus stages is pretty cool and is still one of the most amazing memories I have from my childhood. Even to this day, even though we are now much older, we still like to get together and throw turtle shells at each other for a few good hours. Matches can take very long and the level design is quite amazing for it's time. This proves the saying: Quality over quantity, there are only four stages, but they are perfect.

The Bad
Making minor adjustments to your direction slows you down a little and the NPC's use this to catch up with you. This wouldn't be such a problem if I didn't suffer from perfectionism and could just ride with the karts normally. Sadly I always feel urged to ride perfectly straight, which is not as easy as it sounds.

Obstacles only show up when they are right in front of you and it's already too late to dodge them. A friend of mine left a banana-peel on a ramp which I had to jump over, I saw it too late and fell down, this instantly caused me to drop from second to last place. I did end up third, but I could have been first if it wasn't for the annoying pop-up.

The characters didn't look impressive than and twelve years hasn't changed that. Rather than having animated characters it looks like the characters from Mortal Kombat. The graphics just stand-out way too much against the very colorful and light level design. I also love the ceremony at the end of a race where the camera moves a little, but the characters always look straight at it and their cars also turn to the camera.

The Bottom Line
I already said at the start of this review that Mario Kart 64 is the best installment in this franchise. The level design is great and we still play this game after like twelve years. It takes quality over quantity which makes it stand-out as a racing game, especially on the Nintendo 64. Try it out if you haven't done so already before, this game is very unlikely to disappoint you.

The Good
The Mario Kart Series was great for their time. Now in 1996, here is Mario Kart 64 for Nintendo 64. The tracks are pretty good, the game is also used to 4 players. When you start the Mario Grand-Prix, you can start with the 50cc, 100cc, or 150cc. The subject of the game is to make it in first place.

The Bad
1: There is no coins to pick up to increase your speed. 2: The 150cc is kinda hard and you might be ended up in 3rd place. 3: Some tracks may be hard, but once you get used to them, they will be a little bit easy. 4: Some of the power-ups are missing like the leaf and the star.

The Bottom Line
Just by playing the game, it looks pretty awesome in 1996. You might be able to find a copy online or a used video game store. Go ahead and get this game, because you know it's gonna be a great race today.

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!