Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart was originally a pseudo-3D game for the SNES back when the SNES was god. Of course it became a big hit, because of its 3D roots, but an interesting question arises: Would the game be so good if it had to go on its own merits other than being a graphically interesting game? This game answered that question.

Mario Kart 64 is a hard game to review. On one hand, some levels I had a ton of fun. Then, on some levels, I felt like the game was a cheap racer with no depth or difficulty. I don't exactly know what to do with it.



The game itself is somewhat shallow. There's your traditional single-player and multiplayer options- except the game is more broken up into difficulty. Essentially, you chose your difficulty before your map and character, and the difficulty somewhat gears how you need to choose your character and how you play. Now, don't get me wrong: this is nothing new to any racer. I just can't really find any other way to expound on the gameplay. You race against other Mario Kart-ers. Thats about it. There are items you can gain to boost yourself or affect other players, but they do very little to affect the game other than making it very diffuclt to win in some situations (Sometimes, a driver gets extremely lucky and throws off your perfect race).

As for the multiplayer, there's the single player race, Versus, and Battle. Versus is the single player race with no-one (More like a duel race), and Battle is a small-mapped fight with the bonuses found commonly in the game. The multiplayer is somewhat fun, but like the game, very short and shallow. Battle is fun, but you probably won't be able to play this with friends for more than an hour without exhausting every possibility. Versus is Versus, and it really depends what kind of friends you have, but it isnt that amazing. The Single Player two player mode is pretty decent, but still suffers from the lack of the single player mode.

Also, to note, there are "Time Attack" modes, but they are very... guess what? Shallow. This whole game feels as shallow as a puddle of water, and it won't last you long before you realize that a lot of this game was put into the environments. The environments are fairingly decent and unique, but like most maps feel very linear (As opposed to Beetle Adventure Racing, which feels somewhat lost), and tend to follow the pattern of being a race to avoid the shells, avoid the drops, and stay on track.



As for the graphics, I was greatly suprised to notice that the characters are still 2D, while the environments are 3D. It is an interesting concept, like the Xenogears engine, but still suffers from the obviousness of the 2D characters. They tried hard to make the 2D characters 3D with the design, but the telltale crappy edges on the 2D characters make it all too obvious.

Overall, you can probably tell that this game has failed to impress me. I've heard the Gamecube sequel "Double Dash" is awesome, but that doesn't grace this game to be more than a lost driving game. While games that came out similarly like Gran Turismo pushed the gaming limits with realism, while games like Beetle Adventure Racing took a lighthearted racing approach, its hard to really take this game seriously in either group. It IS lighthearted, but it also can't really present a decent driving game behind the atmosphere. I think it would have been much better if Nintendo had opted to take a already existing good driving game and put Mario in it, instead of making it all from scratch.

2 star(s) out of 5

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