Mario Kart DS (DS) review "I’ll spare you the traditional lectures at the beginning of reviews for Mario games. I’m not going to go on about how Nintendo just loves shoving the little red plumber into every genre ever created (coming soon: Mario Tournament 2007) and I’m certainly not going to question or even call attention to the fact that Nintendo loves to take the same game and release it over and over again for every system. You’ve heard it all before and you’re probably sicker of it than I am. So, I won..."

I’ll spare you the traditional lectures at the beginning of reviews for Mario games. I’m not going to go on about how Nintendo just loves shoving the little red plumber into every genre ever created (coming soon: Mario Tournament 2007) and I’m certainly not going to question or even call attention to the fact that Nintendo loves to take the same game and release it over and over again for every system. You’ve heard it all before and you’re probably sicker of it than I am. So, I won’t keep you from enjoying this Mario Kart DS review any longer. Essentially, Mario Kart DS is the same as Mario Kart SNES, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart Advance, and Mario Kart Double-Dash. Did you like those? Hey, buy this if you’ve got a DS. You’ll enjoy it, I promise. Did you hate them? I suggest you don’t buy Mario Kart DS.

The basic gameplay mechanics are the same ones we’ve seen in the other nearly half-dozen iterations of this series before, except that there aren’t two riders in each kart as we saw in Mario Kart Double-Dash. Mario Kart DS puts you into the driver’s seat as Mario or a variety of other characters (totaling about a dozen) from Mario’s past and pits you up against 7 tenacious rivals across landmarks of the series. You’ll be burning rubber through the deserts of Super Mario Bros. 3 while dodging cacti, pulling power-slides around tight corners while running from the ghosts of Super Mario World, and you’ll even be passing your rivals through Luigi’s Mansion. Along the way, you’ll have to utilize some collectable powerups to the best of your advantage if you hope to win one of the coveted trophies in the Grand Prix mode.

None of these additions are really “original” or anything. There are some new powerups like the squid from Super Mario Bros. II that makes the screen of your rival turn black. You can also drift behind people, which allows you to ride right up behind them for a few seconds to gain a boost to pass them. But, outside of a few new tracks that aren’t very dissimilar from the few old tracks, that’s pretty much it. That’s not a bad thing though. In fact, I’m quite comfortable with it. The single-player mode was perfected a long time ago and doesn’t really need to be tinkered with at all. I mean, honestly, a billion kart racers have emerged since Mario Kart was first released and none of them have topped that original SNES game. I might give Nintendo a lot of shit for re-re-re-releasing things, but they know how to make a good Mario Kart game.

Nintendo did new things in the multiplayer department and this is where the game kicks ass. Using the wireless technology built into the DS, you can not only play wirelessly against your friends that might be sitting across the room from you, but you can also play against people online from around the world. Mario Kart was always built around multiplayer and the excellent multiplayer in this version should be your number one reason for picking it up. Hell, if you don’t have a DS you might even consider buying one for it if you like playing Mario Kart multiplayer. The DS has enough power to keep up with the demands of vigorous racing for up to eight competitors wirelessly (four online) and to keep the action up when you’ve only got two or three players, the game will inject a few CPU opponents to spice things up.

Sure, Mario Kart DS doesn’t do much with the touch screen, but I don’t care. The touch screen simply displays a map normally that makes the game a hell of a lot easier on the easier difficulties because you can see every turn and obstacle coming up well before you get there. But I don’t care. The game looks really good too, with a very acceptable distance draw and no framerate dips. It's been ten years since Mario Kart came out and this game is still fun as hell. This latest addition for the DS might not make the best use of all of the hardware, but it still proves to be one of the top entries in the series.

Community review by asherdeus (April 03, 2006) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.