have to admit, before playing Mario Kart: Double Dash!! today I was really nervous about how it would turn out. The version that was shown at E3 was extremely slow. The 150cc mode seemed to sputter, cough, and wheeze, and the 50cc level was an absolute joke. This wasn’t the GameCube Mario Kart gamers were hoping for. Today, at the Nintendo Gamers Day, we got to sit down with a much newer build of the game, and after playing through all of the initial tracks and modes, my fears are almost gone.
Nintendo has added a lot to the Mario Kart universe without detracting from what makes Mario Kart fun. Obviously one of the biggest changes to the franchise is you select two racers (of an initial 16) instead of one, and also pick which vehicle you want to drive. Depending on what type of racer you are, and what mode, circuit, or class you are racing in, you’ll want to experiment quite a bit on the pairings of your racers, and which vehicle you want to take to the tracks. The initial list of characters available are: Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Birdo, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Koopa, Koopa Troopa, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, Baby Bowser, Wario, and Waluigi. Other characters will be unlockable (notice Toad is missing?).
This two-seated racing element also adds to the power-up mayhem. Outside of the normal Mario Kart power-ups available (green shells, red shells, mushrooms, lightning bolts, etc) each set of characters (Mario/Luigi, Donkey Kong/Diddy Kong, etc) have their own player-specific power-ups available. For example Princess Peach has three hearts that rotate around her. If another racer attacks her with a projectile, the hearts absorb that item, and then the Princess can then use that particular item. Currently my favorite player-specific power-up is Baby Mario/Baby Luigi – the Chain Chomp. When you utilize it, a huge chain chomp speeds ahead of your vehicle and drags you along for the ride taking out racers and obstacles in your path before it detaches and then continues to lay waste in front of you.
A couple other things to note about the regular power-ups: currently golden (unlimited) mushrooms and boo ghosts seem to be absent, but I was told these could be character specific power-ups only, or unlocked somehow. Purple spiked homing shells in Mario Kart 64 used to home in on any racer in front of you until it took out the leader, but now they actually have wings and fly to the leader and explode – taking out all racers within the blast radius. Nifty!
The single player experience unfortunately seems to still be a little light. With only 3 Circuit Cups (Mushroom, Flower, and Star) that each contain 4 tracks, and 3 speed classes (50cc, 100cc, and 150cc), Double Dash should be able to be completed in a day, and Mario Kart fanatics will only find real difficulty in the 150cc mode. Nintendo is promising a heap of unlockables, but whether or not these will be circuits, racers, modes, or tracks is still a secret. Personally, I’m hoping they add at the least 2 more circuits, and have all the circuits mirrored. In my opinion, you can never get enough tracks, and I’m really hoping Nintendo doesn’t skimp on this.
What Mario Kart has always been known for is the multiplayer experience, and Double Dash is no slouch. Finally Mario Kart’s Circuit mode can be played in its entirety with multiple players, instead of just one track at a time. You can also play the normal Versus mode where you can just race on specific tracks. Nintendo also now allows you to modify the number of laps per track, and number of player-specific power-ups.
Battle Mode has also been beefed up. Nintendo has included the original Balloon Battle mode, but now added 2 new modes: Shine Thief and Bob-Omb Blast. Shine Theif is basically a timed keep-away with a shine sprite from Super Mario Sunshine where the player who keeps the shine for 60 seconds wins. Bob-Omb Blast mode is more of a bomb-only battle mode where players try to be the first to blow up three opponents. If you hit an opponent with a bomb, you get a star – but if you get hit by a bomb you lose one of your stars. These new modes are frantic and a lot of fun.
One of the newly announced additions is the Cooperative mode where you and a friend jump into the same kart and take on the competition. You can play both the races and the battle modes cooperatively. Game Informer Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief Andy McNamara and I played this for about 45 minutes, and it really adds a different element to the game. The person in front of the kart steers the vehicle and handles the first half of the execution of the powerslides (pressing a shoulder button), while the person in the rear finishes the powerslide boost (wiggling the analog stick left and right), but can also punch other racers and make them spin out, as well as steal their power-ups. You can change seats at anytime by both of you pressing the Z-button. The person in the front can also hold onto power-ups for the other player, and can toss them to his partner. This really adds a new element to the game, and encourages a lot of player communication, but I have to admit I was rather disturbed when my boss uttered, “Billy, hand me your banana…uh…you know what I mean.”
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! also will be the second GameCube game to feature LAN connectivity (Kirby Air Ride will be the first) with the GameCube broadband adapter, and you can link up to eight TVs and eight GameCubes together for multiplayer kart fun. If you add in the cooperative modes, ultimately 16 people can play the game together at the same time. I’m not too sure how many people will actually do this with eight GameCubes, but I can see a lot of action happening between two GameCubes and four-player split-screen on two TVs.
Overall, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is really shaping up nicely. With so many different multiplayer modes and LAN connectivity, this could be the ultimate party game. The dual player element is a fantastic addition, but even though you have two racers in one kart it still plays and feels like Mario Kart – and that’s what truly matters. If Nintendo can pack in more single player elements, and have extra unlockable tracks and circuits then Mario Kart: Double Dash!! could be the best Mario Kart title to date.
-Billy Berghammer