Mario Kart 64

"Welcome to Mario Kart... again!"

When it premiered on Nintendo 64 consoles across the world in 1997, multiplayer madness ensued. The second game in the Mario Kart franchise, Mario Kart 64 improves on its predecessor and takes racing out of Mode 7 and into the third dimension. Eight karters are available for racing including mainstays like Mario and Luigi to Peach, Toad, Yoshi, DK, Wario (who replaces Koopa Troopa), and Bowser. Each character has its own weight class. Mario and Luigi are the most balanced while karters like Peach, Toad, and Yoshi have the greatest acceleration but are also easily smacked around by other karts, and DK, Wario, and Bowser are the heaviest of the eight. They can bounce around other racers, have the highest speed, but they are lacking in high acceleration.

You'll most likely want to start with the 50cc grand prix if you're a beginner or are just getting your feet wet again with this title. This is the slowest cart class and is perfect to begin with. There are four races to each of the four cups (the special cup being unlockable with the most difficult tracks). Each track brings something new to the table both aesthetically and fundamentally. Racers will have it easy on the figure eight track of Luigi's Raceway, have to deal with mounds of Monty Moles in Moo Moo Farm, clean the sand out of their wheels in Koopa Troopa Beach, and halt for an oncoming train in Kalimari Desert. That's just the variety of the first cup, the Mushroom Cup. Other cups feature sprawling mountainsides, snowy paths, traffic congestion, haunted boardwalks, a race bordering Peach's castle, a motocross track gone berserk, and even a track through the innards and outers of Bowser's keep. Variety is the spice of life, and there's a lot to digest in this racer including the items. You'll use green shells, red shells, banana peels to slip up the competition, starmen to make you invincible, lightning bolts to shrink everyone so you can run over them, and more. MK64 features the ability to hold items behind you to dodge homing red shells and other items. This may seem cheap or too easy to anyone who has played later Mario Kart games.

Four players can face off against one another on any of the sixteen tracks. There is no AI with three or more players, and there's no AI in the battle mode either. This mode consists of you using items on your human controlled opponents. Each time you get hit by an item you lose one of three balloons. Lose all of your balloons, and you're eliminated. While there's no AI in battle mode, one friend can compete with you in Grand Prix mode to help you collect trophies and unlock faster cart classes, or you can race by your lonesome against the CPU. The CPU however had rubber-band AI. This means that no matter how far ahead you think you are from your opponents they will somehow catch up to you and drive up your butt-- figuratively, as this is an E rated game. This makes races seldom a sure thing and creates more excitement, but at the same time it feels like artificially making the game more difficult. I felt that it was a mixture of both ideas. Furthermore, the game feels a lot looser compared to its younger brothers which through me off a little. Also, without controller pak support you cannot save ghost data for time trials which is an added bummer.

Overall though the experience is over far too soon. You'll want to have friends to play with you to enhance the experience rather than always playing alone against the rubber-band AI. Seriously, AI, you cannot possibly be driving any further up my ass! This game won't take you but a few hours or so to unlock and complete the final game mode if you're really cooking. A great racer but now I feel that at least two of the future Mario Kart titles in Double Dash and DS have outdone this once perfect racer.

The Recap:

Story: N/A

Graphics: Beautiful 3-D tracks with 2-D sprites makes for a pretty good combination.

Gameplay: A little loose after playing Mario Kart DS for a bit, but it's manageable once you get reacquainted to the controls.

Audio: Awesome tracks. The best Mario Kart soundtrack of all time in this reviewer's opinion. Also voice overs are welcomed as well.

Replay Value: Unless you have friends, there's not too much which greatly docks the score.

Overall: 7.5/10 - My third best Mario Kart game which is good company to be in for sure.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/25/07