Mario Kart DS (DS)
Reviewed by Kit
So without further ado:
Graphics: It’s on the DS, so you can’t expect total realism. I’d put the graphics on par with the 64 version. 4/5
Story: Story, where? It’s a racing game. Win, win, win, and that is it. 1/5
Audio: About your standard audio soundtrack. Each stage has a track of music. They’re not memorable. 3/5
Gameplay: If you played the GBA version of Mario Kart, you might have some serious doubts about how a hand-held does handling. Have no fear, that’s not a problem in this version. The handling is very much as like the SNES version. It’s somewhat less sensitive than the GC. Also there are 27 karts and 12 characters. Each kart has stats in handling, weight, items, speed, acceleration, and drift. Of course if you know how to play the game you can handle any kart with any character. But everyone has their favorites. I play Luigi in the Streamliner…a favorite I stole from my sister, who now plays Dry Bones. Besides the excellent single player mode, MKDS also has online capabilities using Nintendo Wi-Fi. It’s very very nice this online mode. I can now play with people even when I have no friends around. Of course it would be even nicer if battle mode was available online as well. 5/5
Replay: After you beat all the single player modes, most of what is left is the online game. That of course is fun, so it’s no problem. 4/5
Overall: It’s a great Mario kart game. I don’t know what else to say that I haven’t already told you except, if you like Mario Kart, then you must pick this up. 4/5
posted by Kit @ 5:07 PM
2 Comments:
I've always loved the Mario Kart series but I haven't played it since the Nintendo 64/GBA days.
Just as Mario Kart has stats for certain characters, they are usually good on certain tracks. For example, courses on hard turning may require a good drifter/accelerator if you crash into corners alot. Courses with nothing but straightaways? pick the fastest racer and screw drifting. It's usually a heavy kart such as Bowser or Donkey Kong. I almost always pick a racer that has awesome drifting abilities as I use a technique called 'snaking' on straightaways and this usually completely removes the need for a heavy kart. Snaking is basically powersliding back and forth on straightaways to achieve the best overall speed. If you think this doesn't help, go play F-zero and come back and tell me that. it's very fun. Turbo boosting, ahh I'm glad to see that feature is back.
One thing I noticed that was new to the stats was the item stat. I'm assuming the higher this is, the greater chance of getting a powerful item. Not really a problem if you suck at driving and just use items to win.
One thing I hated about the DS version, and this is just a minor annoyance. I would be in first place and maybe oh say 90% of the time, the fucking CPU somehow gets a blue shell and nails me. Not really a problem since there IS a trick to avoiding the blue/red shell and it is somewhat difficult to pull off but an annoyance nevertheless.
Anyway, nice review. More to come soon I hope?
The item stat increases the chance for better items, but it also increases the duration of items that are used on you...such as the ink.
As for the blue shell...well if you're number one or two you'll never get that good an item. And I'm curious, how can one dodge it?
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