Number 32: Mario Kart: Double Dash, Nintendo 2003
Intro:
After a loading Lakitu makes a breif appearance, the screen fades into a bright explosion of cute, cartoony racing action with all the characters showing off their great graphics and computer-controlled driving prowess. It eventually fades into the Title screen, which is a text graphic over a background full of competing characters. Menus are color coded depending on where the player is looking, and are broken down by the number of players, then cooperative arrangements, then game types and difficulties, character select, and which circuit or course the player(s) wish to play.
Getting Going:
There is no tutorial, so newcomers either have to learn real fast, get a friend to teach them, or spend some time reading the manual. The controls are pretty simple, but the action can very quickly overwhelm the unprepared. Despite my experience with Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart Advance, I spent my first few rounds getting crushed.
Fun:
There is something very cathartic, theraputic, and clearly fun about destroying the plumber I've spent so many years trying my best to protect. Be it in Smash Bros, Mario Kart, or SM64DS multiplay, I love kicking the dooky out of these cute little guys. The controls are easy to learn but there is a whole lot of much more subtle technique that keeps me coming back to the same courses long after I've crushed them just to improve my own skill. Playing against skilled human players is a lot more helpful to that end, though, since the AI racers don't push players much after they've taken the game to school on the All-Cup Mirror mode. And co-op play makes the game fun in ways I never expected: being a backseat driver was never so satisfying, techical, and useful, now that I can turn any sliding turn into an extra boost with some joystick mashing. The only rain on this joy parade is that the all-defeating Lightning Bolt appears just a little to often to remain fun, if getting blasted into last Tuesday by the spiteful newb or AI in 8th place can be made fun in the first place.
Visuals:
There aren't any clear tricks in this game, short of the fake item boxes looking exactly the same as normal ones until they turn red when the player gets within dangerously close range of them. That effect is perfectly done, timed so that players' eyes widen right along with it, until those desperate few frames where it is unmistakably red and the player is jamming buttons in a frenzy to avoid it.
Intelligence:
Enemies are very competitive, especially at higher difficulties, and their behavior seems very organic and intentional. They are pretty good drivers, but they will make a mistake or two along the way and (thankfully) don't just comp-jump items left in the road like they did in SMK. That really boiled my bunyons(that is, if I had bunyons).
Immersion:
The load times are phenomenal: I don't even think there ARE load times in this game. You just go from track to track with only enough downtime to recount the times and scores of the racers. This makes racing All-Cup very doable. Each track is very fun and unique to drive, forcing players to adapt to all sorts of situations even within one 4-race Cup. The characters behave as you would expect them too, and weapons flow like water, so that when a player is hit, they can quickly get back in the race instead of coming to a full stop and then getting started again.
Cameras:
The camera is pretty good. There is a point in the DK Mountain level in Mirror mode where the camera does something really funky, but outside of that the camera is A.O.K. by me.
Controls:
Ah, simplicity. These are the same controls of the original, except the slide doesn't follow a short hop. Added to the classic controls (which indeed, have not changed except from a D-pad to a joystick and should never change but for this one addition) is the ability to switch driver and rider, which adds a certain level of added technique that has a bit to do with which Special weapons players can use and which cars can carry which drivers. If a player picks up a double item-block, each character holds each of the items, so this button lets the player switch which item is readily availible. Depending on who you ask, this can add a lot to the game or add an unnecessary distraction.
Ideas:
The key idea in this game is having two charcters on each cart, where they can switch on the fly. In the single player this influences which special attack items the player can pick up, and which weapon is immediately availible, which is nice if the player wants to save a shell for defense against an incoming red shell or approaching, unavoidable banana. This really comes into play when a player brings a friend over (or four) and they do co-op. The driving player focuses entirely on driving, while the riding player manages two less intense jobs: throwing weapons, and making blue sparks. Making blue sparks is easy, but being able to turn a sliding turn into a free boost consistently makes the difference between a close race and a crushing defeat.
Memory:
While the single player experience is pretty easy and improves little on the series, the gamers with Nintendo-loving friends will see a lot more joy and technique in this title. The colorful and varied tracks are all fun to race, and the simple controls let new players make progress very quickly. Nintendo seems to treat this series like more old arcade games, where they improve little here and there to keep players involved, but keep the core experience the same for the hardcore fans. And from the looks of the DS entry, so it shall stay. Thank goodness I'm not seeing hyped-up squirtguns in this series.
After a loading Lakitu makes a breif appearance, the screen fades into a bright explosion of cute, cartoony racing action with all the characters showing off their great graphics and computer-controlled driving prowess. It eventually fades into the Title screen, which is a text graphic over a background full of competing characters. Menus are color coded depending on where the player is looking, and are broken down by the number of players, then cooperative arrangements, then game types and difficulties, character select, and which circuit or course the player(s) wish to play.
Getting Going:
There is no tutorial, so newcomers either have to learn real fast, get a friend to teach them, or spend some time reading the manual. The controls are pretty simple, but the action can very quickly overwhelm the unprepared. Despite my experience with Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart Advance, I spent my first few rounds getting crushed.
Fun:
There is something very cathartic, theraputic, and clearly fun about destroying the plumber I've spent so many years trying my best to protect. Be it in Smash Bros, Mario Kart, or SM64DS multiplay, I love kicking the dooky out of these cute little guys. The controls are easy to learn but there is a whole lot of much more subtle technique that keeps me coming back to the same courses long after I've crushed them just to improve my own skill. Playing against skilled human players is a lot more helpful to that end, though, since the AI racers don't push players much after they've taken the game to school on the All-Cup Mirror mode. And co-op play makes the game fun in ways I never expected: being a backseat driver was never so satisfying, techical, and useful, now that I can turn any sliding turn into an extra boost with some joystick mashing. The only rain on this joy parade is that the all-defeating Lightning Bolt appears just a little to often to remain fun, if getting blasted into last Tuesday by the spiteful newb or AI in 8th place can be made fun in the first place.
Visuals:
There aren't any clear tricks in this game, short of the fake item boxes looking exactly the same as normal ones until they turn red when the player gets within dangerously close range of them. That effect is perfectly done, timed so that players' eyes widen right along with it, until those desperate few frames where it is unmistakably red and the player is jamming buttons in a frenzy to avoid it.
Intelligence:
Enemies are very competitive, especially at higher difficulties, and their behavior seems very organic and intentional. They are pretty good drivers, but they will make a mistake or two along the way and (thankfully) don't just comp-jump items left in the road like they did in SMK. That really boiled my bunyons(that is, if I had bunyons).
Immersion:
The load times are phenomenal: I don't even think there ARE load times in this game. You just go from track to track with only enough downtime to recount the times and scores of the racers. This makes racing All-Cup very doable. Each track is very fun and unique to drive, forcing players to adapt to all sorts of situations even within one 4-race Cup. The characters behave as you would expect them too, and weapons flow like water, so that when a player is hit, they can quickly get back in the race instead of coming to a full stop and then getting started again.
Cameras:
The camera is pretty good. There is a point in the DK Mountain level in Mirror mode where the camera does something really funky, but outside of that the camera is A.O.K. by me.
Controls:
Ah, simplicity. These are the same controls of the original, except the slide doesn't follow a short hop. Added to the classic controls (which indeed, have not changed except from a D-pad to a joystick and should never change but for this one addition) is the ability to switch driver and rider, which adds a certain level of added technique that has a bit to do with which Special weapons players can use and which cars can carry which drivers. If a player picks up a double item-block, each character holds each of the items, so this button lets the player switch which item is readily availible. Depending on who you ask, this can add a lot to the game or add an unnecessary distraction.
Ideas:
The key idea in this game is having two charcters on each cart, where they can switch on the fly. In the single player this influences which special attack items the player can pick up, and which weapon is immediately availible, which is nice if the player wants to save a shell for defense against an incoming red shell or approaching, unavoidable banana. This really comes into play when a player brings a friend over (or four) and they do co-op. The driving player focuses entirely on driving, while the riding player manages two less intense jobs: throwing weapons, and making blue sparks. Making blue sparks is easy, but being able to turn a sliding turn into a free boost consistently makes the difference between a close race and a crushing defeat.
Memory:
While the single player experience is pretty easy and improves little on the series, the gamers with Nintendo-loving friends will see a lot more joy and technique in this title. The colorful and varied tracks are all fun to race, and the simple controls let new players make progress very quickly. Nintendo seems to treat this series like more old arcade games, where they improve little here and there to keep players involved, but keep the core experience the same for the hardcore fans. And from the looks of the DS entry, so it shall stay. Thank goodness I'm not seeing hyped-up squirtguns in this series.