mario kart DS

It's hard to imagine a Nintendo console without a version of Mario Kart. Ever since the mold was cast on the SNES, there have been numerous imitations. Even Nintendo's own following iterations didn't seem to capture the same charm as the original. This time Mario Kart DS provides the entire package, borrowing only those components from its ancestors that worked well and created one of the best games I played last year.

The race begins, your foot is on the gas, and your mind on getting a red shell. What you don't expect is to take the lead only to be offered an endless supply of banana peels. This is part of MKDS' attempt at balancing the action. At the start, each character gets two Karts, a Kart unique to the character and a standard Kart, but unlike Double Dash you can't drive another character's Kart. I liked being able to match the performance of a vehicle with the special attacks of another character in Double Dash. In Mario Kart DS, there are no special attacks, making your choice of character your choice of vehicle. What matters now is the balance of your Kart's performance to the quality of item drops associated with the Kart - both visible from the character selection screen. Even then, if you take the lead and manage to keep it, the quality of your drops will remain poor. If you're in last, however, you're more likely to get the more devastating items.

Jumping has not only returned, it has been reworked to start a powerslide. Further to powersliding is the ability to draft your oponents: using their speed to accelerate your own Kart by driving up behind them. But as always, you can make racing as technical or as hamfisted as you like, because it is often not even necessary to do anything except hold down that 'A' button.

Nintendo has provided a Mario Kart "Greatest Hits" of sorts with the Retro Grand Prix. Aside from the four entirely new cups available, Mario Kart DS has four additional cups that are made up of tracks from previous Mario Kart incarnations on the SNES, N64, GBA and Gamecube. All of the tracks are as I remember them, though it quickly becomes obvious where advancements in technology have almost made the old tracks look bad.

The most valuable addition MKDS makes to the Mario Kart franchise is wireless multiplayer through the internet. Launching a worldwide Wi-Fi service on a portable platform was ingenious for Nintendo. It shows their commitment to online play. It also lays the groundwork for the Revolution, proving that these guys actually do have a strategy for bringing their games into the next generation.

To engage other players online requires access to a wireless internet connection, of which I had none. Having no other wireless devices, with hardwire drops in every room I needed them, there was really never a requirement. What Nintendo offers for people in this situation is the USB Wireless adapter specifically designed for the DS (it says so on the box!). This essentially forms a wireless bridge between the DS and your PC, which is already connected to the internet. This is a fine solution if you don't mind dropping half the cost of a wireless router on an accessory that can only be used with one device, ever. Furthermore, I had visions of having to sit near a PC if I wanted to ever access the online service. This was not a reasonable option for me, so I bought a wireless router.

The WiFi matching service is easy enough to navigate, and is probably too simple for its own good. It's not like the server browsers you'd see in a FPS - the game simply looks for other people who are looking for a match and throws you all into a race. Not to mention it takes forever for this process to complete, as there are no doubt impatient types that simply quit and force the game to look for additional players to fill the empty spots. Or worse yet, drop out half way through a race when victory is absolutely certain.There is also no way to avoid these types in the future. Then there are the Friend Codes¹, which could have been used more effectively. Entering a Friend Code is only part of the process. See, your "friend" must enter your code as well in order for you to see any information about them or match up with them. Even then, the information available is limited to Wins, Losses and last time online, and the "matching" is simply a menu option called "Friends" (you can't start a race with a specific friend). What would have been more useful is an email notifying you that someone has added your friend code, or wants to start a game. Nintendo allows you to link your DS WiFi ID (different than the friend code) to your MyNintendo account, but after doing that I didn't notice any added functionality. This would have been a perfect way to allow these notifications. In the end, Friend Codes are really only useful when you're all online at the same time. Not exactly a picture of convenience.

I usually go out of my way to mock reviewers that consider online play on a console "new and exciting". As someone who regularly takes advantage of this feature on PCs, it shouldn't seem like a big deal. The first time I joined a race, though - it was pretty exciting. Who knew where these players were located? They behaved like humans. There was no lag. It seemed like an even match-up. Until they quit the race, of course.

There are no pretenses about Mario Kart DS. It is a Kart racing game and there is nothing in it that you haven't experienced before. The controls are easily grasped and there is enough single-player gameplay embedded within its menus to provide hours of fun for someone who doesn't even have a wireless internet connection. Nintendo has shown us what it can do with the Internet, with a game that allows any type of gamer entrance into the fold. I think that's brilliant. They have also produced one of the strongest games to be released for the Nintendo DS.

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1. For anyone interested in a race, my friend code is 545522 / 934077.

oktober nineteen eighty-three