Mario Kart 64

"Does Mario Kart 64 live up to the amazing standards set by its snes predecessor?"

Back when the Super Nintendo was first out Nintendo unleashed upon an unsuspecting gaming public a game that would invent an entirely new genre, redefine many of the basic elements of games of the time and become an instant hit, capturing the gaming hearts or thousands upon thousands of people across the globe. This game was Super Mario Kart. It received amazing reviews and feedback from near-everyone that had the pleasure of experiencing its greatness, and rightfully so. It was a perfect example of a developer trying something new and executing it with such perfection, such brilliance that people seemed to almost forget any other games existed for the months following their initial introduction into the world of Super Mario Kart.

Countless imitations were spawned over the following years, Nintendo has invented an entirely new genre of game, and while many of these imitations, rip-offs and heavily-inspired games were quite enjoyable to play, some even great, still, nothing could possibly top the original….

As the launch of the Nintendo 64’s launch neared gamers were eagerly anticipating the newest Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 64. Levels of anticipation second only to Super Mario 64, which as expected was really the key first generation N64 game people were looking forward to. The question in everyone’s mind was ‘Would Mario Kart manage to live up to the outstanding levels of excellence produced by Super Mario Kart and become a classic that people still loved and played years after it’s release?
Read on to find out….

Gameplay
Mario Kart 64 has two basic gameplay modes, Time Trials and Mario GP.
The primary mode of gameplay is Mario GP, which is really quite fun. There is 50cc, 100cc and 150cc (progressively increasing in difficulty and the speed at which your racing takes place). You start off on Mushroom Cup, and once you beat that (which is fairly easy) you move on to Flower Cup (which is harder), then once Flower Cup has been beaten you get to try your luck at Star Cup, which is harder still. Beat Star Cup and you will earn the right to tackle Special Cup (which is the hardest of the Cups and can take numerous attempts to master).
Each Cup has 4 varied tracks, ranging from raceways, a cow farm, a beach, a desert, a turnpike (with lots of cars), an icy snowland, a jungle track, a castle and many more.
You can choose from one of 8 racers (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Bowser, Wario, Toad and Donkey Kong). All of the racers handle quite differently, making it fun to beat the game with all of them and giving gamers reasons to justify having personal favourite racers.

Time Trial mode thankfully returns in all its glory. Those of you lucky enough to have owned the snes incarnation of Mario Kart will be aware that the Time Trial mode of the game was one of the best included in any game due primarily to the fact that it was fun. Enjoyable enough that many of us spent hours on single tracks attempting to shave fractions of a second of our best lap and overall times with a perfect run. The Time Trial mode added tens of hours of gameplay to the title for the great majority of gamers that owned the title.

Mario Kart 64 allows players to race against the clock on all of the single player tracks, keeping stats on your top few lap times, and top overall time. Nintendo have included 4 of their own ghosts for you to race against once you’ve gotten a fast enough time for the track to unlock it. These ghosts are a great inclusion which provide incentive to give time trial a good go on all tracks. If you’ve got a memory card with your console you can also save your own ghosts and show off that impressive run on Wario Stadium..or reveal how you managed to nail a special shortcut on a certain track that resulted in a lap time almost half of what your friend has on their file.

The Mario GP races are great fun, and a decent challenge, though many gamers may find that overall it can be a little on the easy side, but that’s why there’s a Time Trial mode. In races, you’ll find that the AI cheats, playing catch-up mode when you’re in the lead (somehow the karts seem to magically get about 1/3 faster when they’re eatin’ your dust), but this just keeps things close and makes for more enjoyable races.

At your disposal are a range of weapons and items to use in the races, most of which have made a return from the snes version. These include shells (you shoot them at racers) with standard ‘it goes where you shoot it’ shells, homing shells and the almighty blue shell, which will hit everyone in front of you allowing you to catch up when you’ve fallen far behind the pack. You also have mushrooms for speed boosts, bananas to throw on the track that cause riders to spin out when they run over them, an invincibility star, and plenty more. The weapons add some great fun to the races.

Once you beat Mario GP 50cc, 100cc and 150cc you will be awarded with a new title screen, and Mario GP Extra, in which all of the courses are mirrored, begin now able to race all the cups in reverse further adds quite a good deal of replay value to he title.

Overall the Single player is great, and very fun. The track designs, in my mind, are excellent but I can completely understand and respect anyone that feels they do not match their greatness of those found on the snes. Mario GP will take a while to complete, and then you have the Time Trail mode to pour hours upon hours into, mastering your speed skills. Nintendo really do know how to make games.

9/10

Graphics
When the N64 was first out the graphics of Mario Kart 64 were great, but when compared to more recent N64 it doesn’t look all that great, that is of course to be expected. Developers need time and experience with a console to truly push its graphical limits. The graphics aren’t ugly, or anything like that, in fact they are fairly nice if not a little on the bland side (again, this is understandable and to be expected from a first generation title). Mario Kart 64 uses fairly basic and simple textures which do the job but don’t exactly induce eyegasms. Racers are made up of a load of pre-rendered sprites rather than polygons. There is a sprite for almost every different angle of each racer though, so things looks fine as far as that goes.

The tracks themselves look quite nice, and Nintendo have used good design and textures to give each of them a nice dose of personality and style. With the dirty browns of Choco Mountain, Icey blues and whites found on Frappe Snowland, the lush Jungle greens of Donkey Kong’s jungle course and so on. Sherbert Island even features reflections on the icey surface of the track, and although very basic they are a nice addition.

Overall, nice first generation graphics, but they certainly didn’t push the Nintendo 64 to its limits (which is fair enough too).

6.5/10

Sound
The sound effects in Mario Kart 64 are ok. They aren’t extremely high quality, but they do the job. Remember folks, this is a first gen game, and developers are still just tapping the power of the new console at this stage.

The music is where the game shines aurally. In true Nintendo style it is very catchy, well composed, level-themed and overall just plain good. Lots of different tunes are to be heard throughout the game, and they suit the levels they are used in very well. You really have to be talented to make music that sounds “snowy” or like a beach, or desert. The Music in Mario Kart 64 is kind of basic but this isn’t a bad thing. The sound isn’t as crisp and sharp as that in many other games found on the N64 but it’s still pretty good.

8/10

Multiplayer
So you’ve finished Single Player, and have gotten to the stage where you are lucky if you shave 1/100th of a second off your best time on each track when you have a go of Time Trial mode have you? Well get 4 friends over, get some caffeine (pepsi, coke, coffee, whatever takes your fancy), and if your old enough some alcohol won’t go astray either. Now sit back, and prepare to play Mario Kart multiplayer until you notice that outside is getting lighter for some odd reasons and then realise the sun is rising and you’ve just spent an entire night having an absolute bloody blast with the multiplayer. Yep, Mario Kart 64 is an awesome multiplayer game. As far as multiplayer on the N64 goes it’s up there with the best. While fairly basic, it’s just great fun..with one, two or three others. Sober or otherwise. It’s usually one of the more played multiplayer games whenever I have a few friends that are in the mood for some games ‘round.

In multiplayer, you can race in Mario GP (in all 4 classes, in all 4 cups, with opponents), which is excellent fun in itself, and will keep you happy for hours.

You can also play “VS” where you race against just yourselves in all 4 classes, in all 4 cups.

The best part of multiplayer however in my opinion is battle mode, because it just never ceases to be damn good fun. There are only 4 multiplayer arenas, but for some reason that is still plenty enough. The big donut is just a circular arena with a hole in the middle filled with hot lava, Block Fort (my personal favourite, and most of my friend’s favourites too) which has 4 blocks in each corner of the track, which have 3 levels each, and can be traversed between and around on the ground, Double Deck which is a multilayered level, and then lastly Skyscraper which is a small almost circular track on top of a skyscraper, with plenty to places to fall off, making a very rapid decent to the ground below and losing a balloon (life) for your efforts.

The multiplayer is just so damn fun you will literally be playing all night when you have a few friends over. Top stuff, but would you expect less from the almighty Nintendo? :P

9.5/10

Replayability
Beating 50cc, 100cc, 150cc and Extra will take you a good while. Once you’ve done that a few times there is really just Time Trials and multiplayer to keep you coming back to this little grey cart. Thankfully however most people that do play MK64 will end up putting plenty of hours into Time Trial, but I can’t garuntee everyone will enjoy the tracks enough to want to race them over, and over, and over again.

I was playing Mario Kart 64 for about 3 months on a daily basis, well after I has totally beaten the game, started again and beaten it over again. I don’t know if everyone would get this much out of the game, but I certainly got a lot of replay value out of it. Years on I still dust it off for a bit of a race now and then.

8/10

Difficulty
I’d have to say that Mario Kart 64 is a fairly easy game. I didn’t have to hard of a time total beating the Single player, but this really isn’t a problem or anything for me. It’s on the easy side, but certainly won’t have been beaten in 5 minutes when you first play it, it does take time to master. It could have been a bit harder, but who am I to complain?

Pros
* AMAZING MULTIPALYER
* Great single player
* GODLY MULTIPLAYER
* AWESOME MULTIPLAYER
* Multiplayer?
* Catchy music

Cons
* Nothing really too bad here, it’s just that the game is slightly easy.

Buy/Rent?
Buy. This game was well worth the price I paid for it when it first came out, and now it can be found much cheaper. Go and pick up a copy of the game now. If you don’t have an N64 this is just one of the reasons to grab a pre-owned one with a few games right now.

Overall
This is another Nintendo Classic. Great gameplay and excellent multiplayer make this game a real must-have. Unless you have some severe problems with kart racing games in general, then you should own this.

Go and pick up a copy of Mario Kart 64 now! If you don’t own an N64, get one.

Overall 9.4/10 (rounded to 9/10 for GameFAQs).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/01, Updated 11/06/03