Mariokart: Double Dash

As evidenced by some previous posts, I’ve been playing the latest in the Mariokart franchise as of late. My history with this game goes back to the days of the SNES, with Super Mariokart. The racer of choice was either Toad (the Pud) or Koopa Troopa. Years were spent playing this game, perfecting timings, and mastering even the dreaded Rainbow Road. When the Nintendo 64 came onto the scene, the “64″ version of the kart classis was soon to follow. However, much like most of the N64’s titles, MK64 was disappointing to say the least. Shoddy controls, terrible gameplay, and slow hardware all led to a piss poor game, leaving me playing the SNES version for even more years. Flash forward a couple years, throw in some developments in graphics technology, some rumours about a dolphin, and enter the Gamecube. Since the day this console came out, I have been waiting and anticipating the release of the “cubed(?)” version of the best kart racing game. Well, at the end of the year, my prayers were answered. Double Dash came out, and after reading some glowing praise from Gabe and Tycho, Travis and I procured the game for our little brother. After a brief stint with it, we decided to buy our own gamecube, after I decided to move home, and that brings us up to the present. This game is nearly flawless. To begin with, it’s gorgeous. The graphics are spot on, rather than re-inventing the wheel, they stuck with classic character designs, simply made 3D. It’s actually hard to think back to the original and imagine these characters made out of flat sprites now. Secondly, the options for play are amazing. You can either do classic 1 on 1 (on 1 on 1) Grand Prix, do Battle Mode (3 varieties) or time trials or 1 on 1 (on 1 on 1) races without the other characters. The major change in this game is the cooperative mode. One player steers, the other rides the back, bring the blue sparks, and runs the offense. You can switch these positions at any time, even in single player mode (you control all functions by yourself, a little daunting at times). It’s truly amazing, and it’s kind of hard to explain how cool it is. Another cool addition is that you can link up your Gamecubes over a network and play on different TVs. So what you really need is something like 4 gamecubes, 4 TVs, and 8 people to truly get a kart match going. The actual insanity of that I can’t even imagine, because with 4 people on one Gamecube, this is the most fun I’ve ever had playing a game in my life. The Battle Mode’s three possibility are “balloon mode”, which is your standard “hit them three times with shells” style match, and it retains the fun of the classic, but pales in comparison to the other two additions. “Steal the Shine” is essentially capture the flag. And it is a little spastic. Imagine capture the flag, going 50 miles an hour with Nintendo cartoon characters squeaking and throwing shells around. Simply put, awesome. “Bob-omb blast” is a classic style mode where you only are armed with bob-ombs (stacks of them!) and you try to blow the smithereens out of each other. It’s really fun, and can use the cooperation between a good pilot and gunner just like the Grand Prix. Missing from this is the ability to play 1 on 1 on 1 on 1 in Grand Prix. I don’t quite understand, but you can’t play more than 2 players solo in the GP. I’m unsure as to why this was chosen as a mechanic, but it’s frustrated me on more than one occassion. Aside from that, 150cc is damned hard, but it should be. I really enjoy this game, and truly lives up to the expectations put forth by the praise garnered, and as a successor to the Super Mariokart name.