Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

"Double the disappointment, double the boredom."

Let me start off by saying that I really, really like the Mario Kart series as a whole. Super Mario Kart is one of the best games ever made, without question. Mario Kart 64 was a good sequel that was the cause of many sleepless nights. And the recent handheld iterations, Super Circuit and Mario Kart DS, were fantastic. So I'm not a hater.

I don't blame Mario Kart: Double Dash's inability to deliver on the idea that the series has taken a new direction in terms of gameplay. Really, I like Nintendo's attitude, and I appreciate it when a developer wants to avoid the typical rehash sequel and deliver a follow-up that feels entirely fresh and new. Two characters per kart? Doesn't bother me. I like it when gaming takes new turns. Dash shows potential, and it can be, under certain circumstances, an enormously addictive ride. But most gamers will never get to that point.

Until Mario Kart DS hit the scene not too long ago and showed the world that a great single-player experience can come out of Nintendo's beloved kart racing franchise, Mario Kart always struck me as something that is not in any way meant to be played solo. Dash just goes to prove this, as it predictably offers up a completely hopeless one-player mode that won't get very far. It might have you hooked for a few hours, but, as with any Mario Party game, if you've bought Dash purely for a solo ride, this fifty-dollar game will have its fifteen minutes of fame, and will then sit on your shelf for a lifetime, collecting dust until it becomes a collector's item. I bought Dash expecting this, because I felt the same way about Mario Kart 64 – great if you have friends over, but pointless if you're the only one around. I have some friends that play videogames, and we had a blast with the N64 rendition of the series. I figured that Dash would act as an updated version of this multiplayer joy, but now with two characters per kart! And lo, it should have been a safe buy.

But this was not to be.

As it turns out, not only does Dash focus almost exclusively on multiplayer, it focuses on the idea of a LOT of players gathering around and taking their favorite karts for a spin. With eight karts per race and two players in every kart, there could potentially be sixteen wired Kart junkies engaged in a single race. I'm assuming at this point that you know what Mario Kart is and have played at least one of the series' past renditions (if not, what the hell are you doing at GameFAQs?). If so, you can imagine what a sixteen-player race would be like. Dust would go flying at the sound of the starting horn, karts would be bashing into each other, shells would go flying, colors are everywhere… it's quite a sight, and if you ever happen to be in this kind of situation, plant yourself there and hope that the fifteen other nutjobs in the room don't run out of gas soon, because a sixteen player round of Dash is the stuff dreams are made of.

Dash is tailor-made for play sessions in large groups, with sixteen characters in a single race, LAN functionality and an emphasis on teamwork with the other dude in your vehicle. The problem with this setup is that you'll rarely, if ever, get the chance to experience Dash at its best. Forget the crappy solo play – anything less than six or seven people is grounds for trouble. Trouble as in boredom. This didn't necessarily have to be the case – with better design, Dash could have been a compelling game no matter how many people are involved. But the basic layout is just so bland. Most of the tracks are flat-ish and uninteresting (DK Mountain is the only real standout because it's the only one that feels like it's got any dimension to it), and the items and characters are mostly the same ones we've seen several times before. The fun of a sixteen-player LAN game is the humanity of it. Shouting at your teammate to try to cooperate with each other is fun. Taunting the losing players or screaming at the winning ones is fun. It's the kind of fun you can't get in other cases, even with four players. You've got to have a lot of people for this kind of entertainment.

One of the downsides to this new two-characters-per-kart deal is that this means absolutely nothing at all if two individual people aren't at the controls of each kart. You see, the idea here is that one character is driving the kart, while the other manages and uses items. Simple enough, right? If you're playing co-op with someone else, you'll get a decent amount of entertainment out of constantly communicating verbally. It's not just a matter of discussing tactics, either – to switch between the driver's seat and the passenger's seat, both players have to press the Z button at the same time, so that's where those communication skills come in. This can be an interesting way to mix up the racing action if you're playing with more than one person. When a single person is controlling the entire kart, however, there's really no difference. One character still drives while the other uses items, but since you're in control of both characters at once, who cares? The Z button switches the characters, but the thrills of keeping up with the race while cooperating with your partner are gone. There's no difference in the way a vehicle controls when different characters are at the wheel, and while each character is given a special item, these items are usually just super-powered versions of existing items. Once you take the second player out of the equation, the two-character mechanic is nothing more than a cheap gimmick.

And the graphics and sound aren't really worth talking about, so I won't mention them again.

The kart handling has been altered a bit, for better and for worse. For one thing, the tried-and-true hop mechanic from the previous games has been ditched. Boo. Boo, I say! I can see why they did this, as the only logical way to pull it off would be to force both players to hit a button simultaneously to pull off a successful hop. This would be taking teamwork too far, and pulling off a good hop would be too difficult. But in doing this, the developers have canned something that has been with the series forever, and once again, players operating a vehicle entirely solo have to suffer as a result. This does, however, leave two shoulder buttons for drifting. Players have to hit the appropriate shoulder button in the direction they want to drift, and then have to swing back and forth on the analog stick to pump the vehicle into high-flying powersliding mode. The level of slide is indicated by the color of the spark that kicks up from the ground, which is nice. On the other hand, I wasn't too fond of using a face button for item usage. And the fact that they assigned the X and Y buttons to the same function is questionable. I thought IGN made an excellent point when they said that the X button could have been used for items while the Y button be used for something like a look-behind feature.

So you've got a single-player mode that really has no reason to exist, and a multiplayer mode that is only fun if you can find a lot of people to support you. What else? Oh, the classic Battle Mode is back, and they completely butchered it, I'm afraid. As with the rest of the game, Battle Mode suffers from boring, uninteresting design, only this one got hit with a far more deafening blow. The arenas in Dash's Battle Mode are some of the most uninspired you could possibly imagine. They're flat, lifeless, featureless, and absolutely no fun to ride around in. Sweet memories of Mario Kart 64's amazing Block Fortress came floating into my head as I struggled to find entertainment among the ruins of the new-and-not-so-improved multiplayer feature. One of the arenas, for example, is the top of a GameCube system. Kind of a cool idea for an arena, but it's just a big, flat, square arena, nothing fancy about it. I'm really disappointed with how one of my favorite Mario Kart modes turned out in Dash.

Pros

+ It can be fun if you've got a LOT of people.
+ Drifting has received a major upgrade.
+ Co-op can actually be compelling.

Cons

- Solo? Don't bother.
- Even three or four players aren't enough…
- Two-character mechanic means nothing if only one player controls the kart.
- Boring design…
- …ESPECIALLY in Battle Mode, which is now worthless.
- Some poor control choices.

Overall: 4/10

I think it's reasonable to expect an adequate single-player experience out of any game, but not necessarily the other way around. I mean, some games just weren't made for multiplayer (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, anyone?). But a good single-player design can come out of a good multiplayer setup if the developer tries hard enough. More importantly, single-player mode is always an option, whereas multiplayer only works if you've got, you know, multiple players. This basic principle of game design is where the Mario Kart series started to lose its lust with Mario Kart 64 (which was really only fun with more than one participant). It continues this unfortunate habit with Mario Kart: Double Dash. Not only does the game require more than one person for a good time, it requires a LOT of people for a good time, to the point that you need to start hooking together multiple GameCube systems. How often does this happen? Hell, I don't think I can name three other people that I know that own a GameCube, or have at least said so (it's not the most popular console, y'know?). If you get this chance, go for it, because you may find the only ounce of fun to be had in Dash. This game has been sitting on my shelf for over two years without use, and I doubt I'll ever boot it up again.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/06