Reader Reviews

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Cube)

by Harrisimo

Attention George Lucas! Buy and study this game. Not every company, when confronted with the delicate issue of how to update a much-loved and familiar franchise, ballses it up completely and soils the happy memories of a million nostalgic fans in the process.

Nintendo are the guardians of a whole treasure trove of massively popular videogames and game characters. This hall of games is more than just a roll-call of some of the finest games ever to be produced (Zelda, Mario and Metroid to name but three). They represent a series of iconic moments in our growing up, and for some of us, offer a reassuring seam of simple pleasure running throughout our lives. We have an emotional attachment to these brands, and maintaining our love for them through major technological advances is a responsibility that weighs heavily on the shoulders of Nintendo's development teams.

None more so than Mario Kart. In the pantheon of "multiplayer" games Mario Kart still shines as the ultimate example of sheer, unadulterated fun with your mates. All those nights in button-bashing into the early hours. The joy of firing a red shell to upend your rival's kart when he's only inches from the finish line. The agony of losing a bend and crawling through grass while six karts shoot past you. The frustration of launching a banana skin into your own path and then driving straight into it. The jumping and bashing, the balloon popping, that urgent, pacey music when you pick up a star and charge down the track in search of victims. It's a game rich in shared joy. Plus of course, it contains all our favourite characters - Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Toad, Bowser. It's a point not often made about Nintendo that with the rich heritage of these characters, the Nintendo game universe is like a playground full of old friends. How many other games offer so many familiar faces across so many different genres?

Which brings us to Double Dash. This latest generation of Mario Kart was always going to be considered in the context of its lineage. It's a bit like having famous or successful parents, and constantly being compared to them... which of us would like to live with people saying "ahh your father was a great man" all the time?!

The first and most important point to note about Double Dash is that, in spite of the much heralded innovation of having two characters per kart, it is still recognisably the same Mario Kart we all know and love. You can almost hear the audible sigh of relief as the game is played for the first few times all across the globe and the two-driver issue is revealed in action as something that does not fundamentally affect the gameplay mechanics. A new incarnation, yes, with a lick of paint, a slight re-invention sure, with those two characters per kart and some new subtle features, but hardly a revolution.

In fact, Double Dash is as commendably straightforward as ever. Choose your characters, pick your kart, and off you go. Twenty tracks, a handful of power-ups, a few unlockable karts and extra characters - in its simplicity, this is very much an old-school racer, which focuses unashamedly on it strengths. This 'pick up and play' philosophy has always been the defining aspect of Mario Kart and it's good to see it persist in these days of ever more lengthy, complex, and options-heavy games.

The tracks are inventive, beautifully designed and realised down to the last detail, offering a glorious range of racing styles and experiences. Bumping down the rocky hairpins of DK Mountain is nothing like powersliding round the Baby Park oval or weaving through the traffic of Mushroom City. There is in Double Dash a much more palpable sense of racing through actual landscapes teeming with life (reminiscent in places of Micro Machines) - skating Shy Guys, chained-up Chomps, trundling buses. These don't feel like racetracks so much as paths through existing and internally consistent worlds.

Some of the new ideas this time round deserve special mention. The phoney power-up box, which only reveals its trademark red glow as you approach it (often too late!) is a great addition to the arsenal of weapons, and adds an interesting element of uncertainty to what was a staple feature of the game. Hurtling towards a box hoping for a decent weapon is now an adrenaline-fuelled mixture of memory test ('was that box always there?') and a game of chicken ('How late can I leave it before swerving to avoid this?'). This is just one example of the sort of low-key innovations which improve the game without polluting its playability, like the many new animations and sound effects which really bring each race to life. Personal favourite is the Golden Snitch-like blue shell which zooms off with a satisfying whizzing noise above the track to take down the leader in a nuclear cloud of blue glory.

At 150cc, the game really comes into own and offers a genuine challenge, especially the later cups which require expert knowledge of each bend and hazard. (One can only assume that the 50cc mode is there for younger players - which, thinking about it, is probably the case given Nintendo's emphasis on family play.) The pace is often frantic, which is not only a result of the ramped-up speed but also the harder AI. At times, it feels like all-out war, with shells zooming past, clusters of bananas to navigate, and karts spinning off all around. This is the magic formula of Mario Kart, that permanent edge-of-the-seat tension as you try and negotiate utter chaos using a mixture of luck and skill.