Mari Kart DS (Mario Kart DS (DS))

Member Name: butters

Product:	Mario Kart DS (DS)
Date:	30/09/06 (803 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wifi meaning limitless gameplay. Loads of tracks and characters.

Disadvantages: Some annoying courses...

Mario Kart. If I am not mistaken it has been around since the SNES and has been on many of their systems since, and will no doubt reach the Wii. Several attempts have been made to copy it, such as Sega’s Sonic Drift (terrible), at Crash Team Racing (Superb). The original has come back though on the DS and the most notable difference is probably the Wifi. There’ll be more on that later though.

The concept of this game is simple. It’s a racing game where you have four races, which you compete in to win a tournament. In order to do this you will need an arsenal of weapons to hunt down your enemy though. It does not even have a story so is just a simple laid back game. There are 8 tournaments in all meaning 32 races, each unique and mostly decent. You can race with quite a few characters such as Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, Bowser and more, all having unique stats and cars giving them different advantages and disadvantages.

~Tournaments~

Where the game excels are the races. There are 4 to a tournament, and seven others racing against you. You can choose three different difficulties and I recommend you start on medium. Different finishing positions give you different points and you have to come in the top 3 to win a tournament, but first if you want to unlock extra tournaments or actually have pride.
The controls are also simple, with A to accelerate and B or L to fire a weapon. Unlike the Rayman DS game, the directional buttons actually suit the game and at no time are you wishing for an analogue stick.

The tracks themselves are superb too, with quite a wide range, 16 new and 16 from older games, just revamped up to DS graphics. All have certain shortcuts and advantages for certain types of cart. With so many tracks I am bound to have my favourites and worst.

Best: Desert Hills-A superb course, quite short and not to tricky with only a few bends near the end. My favourite because there is the obvious shortcut where you get a speed boost and jump over the tricky bends. I also love the music (sound like music in Animal Crossing).

Worst-Rainbow Road-full of loops and is not only too long but too difficult to navigate around all of the loops. Especially since if you are going round a huge loop and a weapon hits you are off the track and are messed up big time.

The weapons are great too. You obviously get better weapons if you are behind, and like the other versions, they have incorporated normal Mario Items into weapons perfectly. An example of this would be the Red Shell which acts like a missile launcher (auto aim). There are new weapons though-such as one that inks your (opponents) screens. I am not a fan of this though and prefer more traditional weapons, ones that actually hurt your opponents.

~Modes~

Its not just tournaments and a big chunk of the game are held here. There are the obvious time trials where you can race against your, or a Nintendo ghost. A VS battle where you race certain tracks and then the interesting ones. A battle mode where you have to drive round an arena to shoot your opponent down and the missions. These improve your skills immensely and involve you learning how to turbo-boost, and get you to collect coins or drive backwards and do any stupid thing possible. Excellent fun that adds an hour or two to the already immense gameplay.

~Wifi~

You can download play from a download station, or play if you don’t have the game but your friend does. You can also play multiplayer DS to DS. The best is over Wifi internet. You can verse friends by getting their friend code, or verse people all over the world and it takes a very short time to set up. You have the choice to verse anyone, or people similar to your stats (wins and losses).
This is definitely where the game excels because it gives hours of endless gameplay that never stops being fun since it is more of a challenge. The only problem is sore losers who quit before losing.

~Extra information~

Wireless multi-card play: Yes (2-8 players)
Wireless single-card download play: Yes (2-8 players)
Age: 3+
Price: Amazon=£24.99 or from £18.99 Market Place.

~Conclusion~

One of the reasons to get a DS since you will spend hours upon hours playing offline trying to win every race on every mode, unlocking every character and trying to complete the different modes. Then you will be playing forever online since the wifi is extremely addictive-with you trying to get your stats up to something decent enough to brag about. It is perfect to play on holiday or on a journey since it is so relaxed and is easy to pick up and get used to. You can spend hours though trying to improve your skills enough to beat the best on wifi, snaking down the track (annoying if you cant and a must for wifi-I can’t do though) for a speed boost, or getting a boost from riding behind someone else. It is something extremely hard to do.

It will appeal to everyone basically and I really can not se many people not liking this game. You’ll get your money’s worth.

Summary: A must have for DS gamers.