The most addictive and fun game on the SNES (Super Mario Kart (N64))

Member Name: defiler

Product:	Super Mario Kart (N64)
Date:	23/04/01 (607 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun, long live, challenging, good graphics (for time), good sound, good multiplayer

Disadvantages: Eventually it became easy to constantly win in single-player, computer players raced fairly predictably

While many people feel that this game has been improved by Mario Kart 64 on the N64 I personally think that the original game is actually much more fun, especially when it was launched.

It's a racing game, but with a difference, rather than just racing cars around a track that aims to promote some sort of realism you instead drive popular nintendo characters around tracks with no realism and much more fun (at least I thought so).

--One Player--
One player mode allowed you to either race a single track (time trial) or take part in a Grand Prix. The time trial was a bit boring in my opinion, but the fact you could get a ghost driver that would reperform your best time so far meant that at least you had something to race against. I will mention the grand prix in a minute as it was also allowed in 2 player mode.

--Two Player--
With 2 players you could either race a single track against each other, take part in a Grand Prix (again against each other, but also the computer) or have a death match.

--Grand Prix--
In this you race with 8 characters (all of them), up to 2 of these can be human controlled. There are 3 different courses that you can choose from initially and 2 different speeds, successful completion of these however can unlock another course and a faster speed, for the ultimate challenge you need to attempt special cup on the fastest speed.

Each course has 5 different maps, you race each map and have to qualify within the top 4 to gain access to the next one, you get different points depending on what position you come and the idea is to aim for a gold cup. A win is obviously best but each place down to 4th awards points and if you are behind in the race you can always target the current 1st place in an attempt to stop them getting as many points next go.

The fun part of a grand prix was in 2 player mode, this gave you a great sense of multiplayer while still having many opponents to pl
ay against rather than being limited to 2 (and a smaller screen), this is one of the few games my Mum actually played now and then and she did seem to enjoy it.

--Battle Match--
In this match there is no race, you have the usual powerups and simply have to try and take away your opponents balloons. Each player has 3 balloons and every time you are hit by something (run into a banana skin, get hit by a shell etc) you lose a balloon, lose all your balloons and you are out.

While this mode is fun enough to play there aren't really enough characters to make it that interesting in the long term and it only really appealed to a smaller group of people compared to the other game modes. I personally enjoyed playing it but could never really find anyone who enjoyed this mode enough to play against me and so tended to stick with the Grand Prix.

--Characters--
There are 8 characters to choose from, each with different charactaristics which make them good for certain types of players. Luckily the creators of the game divided that these characteristics would be given to 2 drivers so if you are playing a 2 player game there is less need to argue over which player gets what.

Mario/Luigi - These are all around drivers, they are medium speed/control/acceleration/top speed and have no real advantages other than that they are not poor at anything. Not my favourite choice as they don't seem to really offer anything much.

Princess/Yoshi - These are fast at accelartion, reasonable at control and low on top speed. Not the best characters but easy to recover from crashes with, probably my 2nd favourite choice.

Donkey Kong (Jr?)/Bowser - These have a low accelaration and control but great top speed, if you are an experienced player and can deal with the slow starts these are probably one of the characters that will allow you to get the top speeds on each of the courses. My 3rd favourite choice.

Toad/Kooper
Trooper - Good control, medium top speed and medium acceleration, their mediums are slightly lower than mario and luigis but still better than the other characters lows. In my opinion these were the best characters, good for new players and a lot of control for experienced players too.

--Powerups--
This was one of the fun parts of the game, rather than simply racing the game on each lap of a course (or at various spots on the battle map) you got to race over a question mark, doing this gives you a random powerup with which you can gain some advantage. No doubt I'll forget at least one of the powerups but these are what I remember:
Mushroom - Speed up for a while, gives you quite a boost of speed but is limited, useful at certain parts of a race.
Feather - Lets you jump into the air, fairly useless in battle matches (although it's saved my live a few times) but great for shortcuts on some race maps.
Green Shell - Lets you either fire a green shell in front of you or lay it behind you. If someone gets hit by it they will be stopped for a while giving you an advantage, requires a bit of accuracy to hit but still a good powerup (much better than the one in Mario Kart 64 in my opinion).
Red Shell - Like a green shell (that can't be dropped) and homes in on an opponent, unless they manage to get an obstacle in the path of the shell or jump it at the last instant they will be hit by it and stopped.
Lightning - Not available in battle mode but the best (and rarest) single player powerup. With this all players other than you will be shrung and can be run over and squashed (stopping them from moving for a while), while small they will also be slower than you letting you catch up or get away from opponents.
Star - Makes you invincible (except from falls) for a while and increases your speed too. If you run through someone while under this you will stop them for a while.
Banana skin - Step on this and be stopped for a bi
t, hard to actually get accuracy but leave in a busy spot and you should hit someone hopefully.

As well as these powerups each computer player had their own special powerup when racing against them, however these were unavailable for single players (except in certain cases). The unavailable ones were:
Princess - Toadstool that shrunk people when they stepped on it.
Yoshi - Egg shell that worked like a banana skin.
Bowser - Fireball that worked like a banana skin.
Toad - Drops the same toadstools as the princess, shrinks people when stood on (the toadstools that is not toad himself).

--Control--
Perfect use of the controller and possibly one of the main reasons the Game Boy Advance will be having 2 buttons on the top of it (much like the SNES had L & R). Control of your character is great (at least if you chose a character that is supposed to be easily controllable), you can skid around corners, slow down/speed up realistically and overall have a good feeling of control over your character. On Mario Kart 64 I personally felt that some of the controlling skills were partly down to luck and there were various courses that seemed to require a great deal of it, in this game however after enough practice you can use a lot of skill in driving (although the fun part of this game is that it is always at least a little luck).

--Graphics--
For the time the graphics were great, now they are a bit dated however and the images really don't look that clear at all. Of course, anyone who is playing on a SNES or an emulator probably isn't looking for perfect graphics and should be able to put this past them. The graphics are still very enjoyable and the characters all look good, each track has its own distinct image (although a few of these images are repeated on different courses) and overall the game looks, for its age at least, great.
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--Sounds & Music--
Still sounds classic in my opinion, I can sti
ll remember many of the tunes in this game now such as the intro screen jingle or the beeps to start the race. The music may get on some peoples nerves but I personally always enjoyed it and this was one game where I never really felt the need to ever turn it off.

Summary: