Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

"The best of the series. Well, the best of ANY kart racing series."

After logging countless hours into Mario Kart: Double-Dash!!, I finally feel prepared to offer up a review of this outstanding game. The game does have a few faults in the gameplay and longevity departments, which keep it from getting a perfect ten, but it is still the best kart racer out there today.

Graphics: 10/10
In single-player mode, this game shines above any of its predecessors and competitors. The levels are bright, colorful, and all of them have interesting things going on in the background. If you weren't so busy trying to get and keep a hold on first place in the challenging races themselves, you would be even more amazed by all the little details you can find in each level. I am not a fan of the Mario Sunshine graphics style, but it only stains a few levels (most notable Peach Beach). The characters are all represented flawlessly (even the Jar-Jar Binks of the Mario-based games, Birdo). The karts all have their own charm. From Mario and Luigi's realistic looking karts to the babies' souped-up strollers to Wario's pimp-mobile, you'll sometimes pick a kart more for its cool image than its stats, which is a real testament to the concept art people behind the racers.

The graphics unfortunately start to wear for the worse as you increase the number of players on your screen, but this is to be expected. It can sometimes be difficult to see where you’re going when in four-player split screen. This is obviously unacceptable for serious play. The game also mysteriously cuts a few things out of the levels as you add more players (such as removing half of the flame wheel and some of the thwomps in Bowser's Castle). I'm not sure if this was done for gameplay reasons or due to a graphical limitation on the 'cube. I find it hard to believe that a thwomp is all that difficult to render.

Sound 9/10
The score for the sound in this game is all about the voices. It’s hard to find a game today that doesn't have at least passable SFX. All of the explosions and kart engines and such are easy on the ears and believable. With negligible exceptions, the game has perfect voice acting. Mario sounds like-a Mario, Peach sounds like a princess, Wario's a jerk. The majority of the characters have very pleasant voice acting, and it really fits in with the game. There are several different tracks for each character when different actions are performed, such as firing a weapon, switching places in the kart, hitting an enemy, skidding out, etc. etc.

The only thing keeping this department from recieving a perfect ten is the selection of some of the voices. Bowser is most notably NOT his normal voice in this game (the voice sounds like someone trying to scare kids by sounding gruff, and failing miserably. This is even more noticeable when you hear his voice while he is under the effect of lightning). Birdo as usual doesn't fail to annoy whenever we hear her/him do its Gollum impersonation, and how many girls do you figure would shout, ''Hi, I'm Daisy!” every time they fly past you on the freeway? Baby Bowser is the best voiceover by far. His devilish laugh after nailing someone with a red shell, or his hilarious crying after losing a race never fails to bring a smile to my face.

The music is really catchy. This is one of the few games I've played where I actually let the intro keep playing over and over because the opening theme is so good. Wario's Coliseum and Waluigi Stadium are pretty sweet tunes, and the atmospheric music of Bowser's Castle and the jungle levels also help to draw you in to the game.

Gameplay 9/10
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! definitely beats out its predecessor, Mario Kart 64 in the gameplay department, but only narrowly nudges out the original due to the innovation of doubling up the kart riders. Putting two riders in the same kart doesn't add as much depth as some would have you to believe, but it is an interesting concept that was executed well (in other words, it doesn't get in the way of the rest of the game). The only problem with this system is that it at times can limit the way you play by possibly forcing you to select a kart you don't want to use. If Bowser is your favorite character, you will have a much harder time winning in the higher levels than someone who likes the Baby Mario Bros., for reasons I will mention shortly. This is no different than in the past Mario Kart games, and the unlocking of a very special kart at the end of the game does help to alleviate this factor a bit, so it isn't much to complain about.

The racing itself is in top form. Karts handle the way they should, and power sliding is back in full force. For reasons I will mention in a minute, you really won't get the full effect of racing in top form unless you race in time trial mode, or play with your friends and agree not to use items. The notorious ''Blue Sparks'' are also quite interesting a concept, and give you something to concentrate on doing during the oftentimes VERY long power-slides. Which brings me to my only real complaint about the pure driving aspect of the game... the game seems to rely too heavily on power sliding. You can start to power slide FAR too early by counter-power-sliding (power sliding early, but steering in the opposite direction of the slide). In fact, on Wario's Coliseum, I hardly ever stop power sliding around the entire course. This may be fun and look cool on replays, but it is far from realistic. Then again, a dinosaur driving a go-kart isn't realistic either.

Grand prix racing still suffers from the greatest detriment to the Mario Kart series: cheating. Not gamesharking, mind you. I'm talking about the computer cheating. Example: You're riding in Peach's kart, and have almost the fastest acceleration in the game. In front of you are the Bowser boys, riding in his kart, with the slowest acceleration in the game. You get a little too close to him and BAMF! He gets hit by a blue shell. You both flip up in the air and hit the ground at the same time. Somehow, someway, he still manages to accelerate past you! Or how about racing in a high-speed kart, going at top speed, and somehow a low-speed kart will absolutely blow you out of the water. It doesn't matter sometimes how well you race; the computer will give your enemies an unfair advantage (on higher levels, like 150cc) in order to make the race more ''challenging.'' I hope that in the future, Nintendo spends more times improving the enemy Kart AI so that they are still challenging while obeying their own rules and actually RACE BETTER than you rather than just giving them god-karts.

Items in the game are a blast for multiplayer, but can be a detriment on single player. Sure, its great to get a blue shell or a lightning bolt when you're in sixth place and can shoot up to third, but when you're the one in first place, it isn't so cute. A really cheesy tactic the game sometimes uses is to launch a blue shell at you within 50-60 feet of the finish line, flip you up in the air, and although you drove quite admirably and were in first place the entire race, you end up fourth because your rivals were right behind you and blew past you. This is the reason I hate games like Mario Party: I want to win and lose based on my skill, not on the luck of the draw of some items (or in Mario Party’s case, the dreaded “Chance Time”).

Both of these lead to another complaint: at higher levels, the only reasonable choice is to use a kart with high acceleration, because you will get knocked around so much that this is the only stat that really matters. And as I mentioned before, your top speed really doesn't matter, because even if you're in the Bowser-mobile, the Koopa Troopas can still drive faster than you due to the god-kart rule of your #2 and #3 adversary. Weight also really doesn't matter much because at higher levels, the computer will never let your #2 or #3 adversary be a light kart you can knock around, it is usually either a heavy kart or the VERY VERY heavy karts that can be unlocked later on in the game.

All of these complaints, however, do not really detract from single-player too much. You won't notice them until you're really good at the game. In multiplayer, however, none of this matters in the slightest. This game is just about the most fun you can have with multiplayer. The cheesiness of the computer-controlled items is a lot more fair and funnier when you hear your friend sitting next to you shout ''woohoo!'' as he fires off a blue shell at you. I have heard some complaints about the battle mode levels being too small, but this is not much of a concern to me. Mario Kart has always been about racing. The balloon busting was always just a sideshow. I can play Counter-Strike if I want to just shoot people.

Replays are fun to watch, but for some reason you can only see them in one-player mode. I imagine it would be just as easy to have the replays retell the heroic victory of the player who won the last match in multiplayer mode as it is in single, but alas, this is not possible.

Also of note is the option of two human players teaming up in the same kart. This adds some fun for a group of friends who want to play together, but have vastly different driving skills. Anybody can throw out red shells, so it can help to let them ride shotgun when one player has too high a handicap to compete with the others.

Storyline: N/A
Come on. This isn't shakespeare. It's go-karting with gender-confused egg-spitting dinosaurs.

Replayability 8/10
Unlocking all of the secrets in the game won't take long. If you've played other Mario Kart games, it shouldn't take you over a week. Once you've unlocked everything, the game still remains challenging, but for the wrong reason: cheating as mentioned before. I may just be better at video games than when I was a kid, but this game also does seem a little on the easy side. I remember the original Kart taking me months to finish.

Time trial is a good way to test your single-player skill, but the best feature of the old Mario Kart games time trial modes were the ghosts, and they are severely handicapped in this version of the game. You can only store two, count them, TWO ghosts on your memory card. This is not funny. I find it hard to believe Nintendo couldn't do better than this, no matter how many memory cards they may wish to sell.

Multiplayer, however, will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER get old. Racing better may not help you beat the computer, but when you have human-controlled karts, it is the difference between first and last place. Blue sparks, baby! I can't comment too much on the battle modes, but the levels are interesting, if a little claustrophobic. But if you've got 4-8 friends together, do yourselves a favor and just grand prix.

Overall: 9/10
Don't listen to my little gripes, however. Most of them are things are minute imperfections that you'll only notice once you've mastered the game. And like any masterpiece, sometimes it’s the miniscule flaws that add character to the finished product. Besides, if you're into multiplayer, you might never notice them at all. In short, this game is an incredibly enjoyable single-player experience, and the most fun you can have multiplayer on a console. If you have a Cube, you need this game.

If you don't have a Cube... you're stuck with Halo. Sorry.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/04