Mario Kart DS - Simple Fun - 10/10
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My Review Consists of many Parts, From Single Player to Multiplayer to other things. These parts are:
Single Player
• Grand Prix
• Time Trials
• VS
• Battle: Balloon Battle
• Battle: Shine Runners
• Missions
Multiplayer
• Multiplayer (Wireless)
• Multiplayer (Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection)
Other
• Items
• Karts and Characters
Hope you enjoy.
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Grand Prix:
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This part of the game opened new ways that we play the DS, With 32 courses which is a lot and a lot of racing, this part of the game was truly amazing, and with man different races in the Grand Prix it was awesome fun. But they did something which truly brought you back to old school gaming and yet brang you into the feeling that you are playing true innovation. This was the fact that each of the courses would be from a previous Mario Kart game, SNES, N64, GC, etc. This brought back fun memories and made me realise how much fun Mario Kart is to play.
Also another thing was the ranking system, from the first few letters of the alphabet, all the way to stars, which reached up to 3 stars which is the highest, this is cool because it also showed your ranking, having at least 1 star, or 2 star etc in every race in the Grand Prix meant that you were rated that rating on Wi-Fi (read below).
The other thing which they put in most Mario Kart games is the Mirror mode, this is quite challenging because after practicing all the levels i would be completly stumped and turning the wrong direction because the levels are mirrored.
Also another great feature was how you could touch the bottom screen to move the map out further so you could see a greater distance of the course, This helped greatly when you can also see what items people have to prepare for an impact. Just like all the Grand Prix modes in the Mario Kart games, this won offers what the others do, the main Single player side of the game. Offering Challenges of 4 Races in a group, to prove yourself worthy to move up to the next cups with faster cars. Grand Prix my friends, one of the best things about Mario Kart.
Dual Screen, Handy Helpers on the bottom screen...prefect.
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Time Trials:
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Isn't is great to be able to play your own ghosts in this, to be able to choose any level you want and race it with a certain amount of boosts being able to jump gaps and so forth. I love this part, not something i play often, but it's nice to play now and again and get some really good stats in this so you have records that your friends can't even beat! The coolest thing about this all is how you can play Ghosts, but, not just any ghosts, Nintendo ghosts! You can play against the Nintendo's Best. They know the shortcuts, they designed the game, so it's a great challenge to put your self upto if you think you are ready to play the Creaters of Mario Kart themselves.
The other great feature was how if you have a good ghost, or your friend has one, you can simply get within range of them, and transfer it. I found this great fun to see what your friends have and play them on your own DS in your own time. I constantly found myself trying to get good Ghosts just so next time i see my friends they would have a good challenge against them, and that they would get good ones for me so i would have a challenge...not likely.
The one problem which i think they could of added to this system would be if you could actually send the data over Wi-Fi and you could exchange it with people you know throughout the world. Say you have a friend you know that lives 500km's away, wouldn't it be nice if you could grab their code, and they could grab yours and you could send your ghosts back and forth, also that would decrease lag because then you are playing a ghost on your own DS not connected to the net. Concluding now, this part of the game was one i never really tried out until Mario Kart DS, and to this day it is now one of my favorite parts of it.
Playing Nintendo or a friends Ghost, love it
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VS
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Ever just wanted to much around against a computer and choose the settings yourself? Then just come play VS. This part of the game is great fun, not something i play all the time, but still something i play occasionaly. It's nice this part of the game, because you choose the settings, whether you want it to be 50cc. 100cc, etc. You had the choice of what level you want the computers to be on. That was great too because when i wanted to play, i could put them on hard, and when someone like my sister wanted to play, all you have to do is put them on easy.
It was also fun to mix and match, say you know someone that is a speed freak, but hates hard computers, all i ever had to do was put it on 150cc, which is quite fast, and set the computers to easy. Meaning you can enjoy the fun of speed, and yet still have easy opponents, it also worked back to front, you could have slow Karts and hard computers, i think this offered a lot of diversiity throughout the game. But, you also had the choice of how many times you want to play, you could say put it 'first one to come 1st 5 times', or you could have it where you played just 10 games, and first gets the most points, and second a bit less etc, meaning you didn't have to win every single game to still be in the running.
And a new feature i liked which they added to the game, was teams, to be able to join forces with computers and have half the karts against the other half was really quite cool! And you could mix and match, using R and L to swap back and forth and swap people over. Even though VS in this part wasn't 2 player, that is alright because multiplayer is discussed below, and you can;t play 2 player on the same handheld anyway. VS is another one of the simple things giving this game it's edge.
It is always fun to just much around
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Battle: Balloon Battle:
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Always a classic. Just like all the other Games how you have to kill the other person with items by removing all of their balloons. Mario Kart DS however gave this game the classic taste of Balloon Battle while still leaving the feeling of innovation. One of the first things that I always thought was a good touch, was that you started off with 1 Balloon on you. But You had kind of like 4 balloons in storage so to speak. But how did you get these balloons out of that type of storage? Hold down select to pump more up!
That wasn't all, also you could simply blow into the microphone to pump it up. Although this may have lost you time or saved you time depending on how it works for you, maybe a bit of work there, i still see people today that have trouble blowing it up. But what i found the most interesting about this was the strategy of it all, some people only pump up 2 incase they can steal one (below), and even though it may save them a balloon, if you get pounded by an item, then a second one before you have time to pump up another balloon. Your screwed.
Something else new they added, which originally was in the Single Player races which they changed, that was that instead of like it's older versions when you hit someone, you simply spin around or bounce of like a wall, you would actually bounce of them literally, the heavier you were the less chance you had of being knocked away, this also helped with mushrooms because if you mushroomed into someone, you would sometimes knock them off the track, but in Battle. If you Mushroomed into someone, you would simply steal there balloon. Another great feature of this game.
Classic Balloon Battle, what more could you want?
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Battle: Shine Runners:
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Shine Runners, which (i think) started in the GC game Double Dash. It is a creative way of playing the game, having only a certain number of shines which orginated from Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube as well. You would have to get as many as you can, and again hit people with items to knock it out of them, i think this was fun, as when you hurt someone the shine would not simply be given to you, but hover, then randomly go sit somewhere else, making it so not everytime I would get it, sometimes it would land so even the person i just hit got it back.
This shared the same levels as Battle, which are different to GP and Time Trials adding a nice touch to the game and giving a feeling of something new, with classic levels from the much older games to brand new ones never before used on a game. One of the best parts of how they designed this part of the game would have to be how after a certain amount of time, the clock would run out and everyone with the lowest amount of Shines at that time would be eliminated. This would contstantly happen over and over until finally there would be 2 people left and the Winner of that would be victorious.
Quite plainly this is always great to play, it also gives you something to do if you may be getting sick of the Balloon Battle. It is a nice touch to the game which is fairly new in the franchise and I must say i know a few people that don't like it, maybe cause I keep winning, hehe. But besides that it is one of my favorites, and i hope to see this continue on Mario Kart Wii. But i really want to see Battle go online on Mario Kart Wii, that would be truly amazing. Just such a fun part of gaming that can evolve into something more massive.
Who can resist....so....shiny....
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Missions
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What a cool part of Mario Kart DS, seriously this is by far almost one of the best things they did to this game. The idea of it is great, with over 60 different missions, each having their own rating system, each with their own ideas, something new everytime you play, what more could you want! I find myself sitting here playing them over and over until i reach 3 stars, with the difference of 2 stars and 3 stars being done to literally just about one tenth of a second.
There was such a wide range of things, from driving through numbered gates in order, to driving backwards over the random pipe thing in bowser castle. This created a wide range of things you could do, and also offered a lot of fun for myself, with each new mission gave a new feeling of happiness, that was the advantage with this part of the game, unlike the GP etc where you felt some repition when playing the same courses.
Besides that it is all great, with the new features of bosses, who you had to verse at the end of every mission group, who eventually kept getting harder and harder it was all great fun, i really do have to comment though on the Nintendo Workers and how well they did this part of the game, they like re-customized each level to suit the mission and at times i saw like you were playing in that level with all the cars and they actually programmed a car so that it went like crazy and was driving really fast and doging traffic. This really hit the spot for me to realise just how much effort had been put into aspects of this game like that. Truly one of the best additions to Mario Kart DS i have seen.
One of the best new features to this game
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Mulitplayer (Wireless):
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This won't be a massive long thing about Multiplayer as i know there is a lot to cover with the battle etc but most of that is covered above with the single palyer battle which is just applied here. Multiplayer on Mario Kart DS is something new, taking the fact that the DS has wireless connection to a whole new level, making it available to play with up to 8 people at once! With only 1 game card if you want, omfg, i thought this was awesome, so many times i love going to a party where everyone has a DS and just rip out Mario Kart and we can all play with 1 simple card, i think this is a great feature to gaming.
But it also offered the deaper side, if you are playing with friends and on the odd occasion you all have Mario Kart DS then you will be able to play on every single level and choose the karts, whereas it sucked that single card play only let you use 8 levels opposed to the Multi cards 32 and you could only be Shy Guy if you didn't have the card. Although this was a massive bummer, i still think it is great considering you are playing wirelessly with friends when you don't even have the game itself, but for me the main thing i hated about this was the downloading, before every race you hate to wait because your DS with the card would have to upload the level and info to the other DS's.
This also is the same with Battle and Shine Runners. I still think wireless play like this would have to be the best thing that happened to Mario Kart. It just gives such a fun atmosphere when you are with friends, and doesn't limit you because of those crappy cords coming out of the handheld. I have almost never enjoyed multiplayer handheld gaming as much as i enjoyed Multiplayer on Mario Kart DS. This is truly some of the most fun you can have with a racing games in animated karts with friends. Definetally get's my recommendation.
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Multiplayer (Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection):
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Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection or whatever it's called is of course the newest feature to gaming, not only for the DS, but for Mario Kart, this was somethign new, never done before in a Mario Kart game, and considering Nintendo has not had much experience at all with online gameplay, they completly nailed this. This did just about everything right and they did really well again considering it was their first shot at it. Although it still was the basic principle with 'Friend Codes' which i am sure a lot of Nintendo gamers out there aren't that fond with.
Once you had a Wi-Fi connection all it simply was, was either getting some Friend Codes of people you know throughout the world, and exchanging them, or even people you know that live nearby that have Wi-fi and you simply play them. But you could also play people by random, this was a nice touch if you just wanted to play any random people throughout a certain area. It was also really great the options they let you choose, whether it was WorldWide playing people from England to Japan, National, just playing people in your own country you are from, or even just regional, just playing Mario Kart gamers in your own Region.
You could only play up to 4 players at once on Wi-Fi, and sometimes you could not even connect to 4. But that was ok i guess, considering you are playing people throughout the world on not exactly the most powerful handheld ever it copes pretty well for it. This is seriously awesome, it has so many opportunites for the future like online competitions etc. It really is a great thing, and even though it doesn't include Battle Modes, which would really be a good addition, as well as it doesn't include all of the levels, considering Nintendo just dipped there toe into the online pool, they have done outstanding.
What else to finish off Mario Kart then with Wi-Fi
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Items:
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Items are not the most exciting part of a Video Game, but they do have a large impact on how you play, especially games like this. They have a large impace on how you win the race as well. Nintendo have also engineered into Mario Kart DS which is a good idea that the closer you are to 1st, the worse the items you get are, and the closer you are to last, the better, this means that unlike in other Mario Karts like Mario Kart 64 where you could still get a Lightning in first place, that you now have a better chance of everyone keeping fairly even.
Blue Shells are much better in this one, even though the change did come in Double Dash but moved onto this one as well, i still love it, the fact that the Blue Shell simply speeds across the whole entire track in the air and Hits 1st place with a massive hit, instead of in the older games how it would knock everyone else out of the way as well on the way which may be unfair when you are coming 7th.
They also introduced new items to this game, such as the Bloopers that would put all this black crap all over the top screen forcing you to use the bottom screen or get a mushroom so you could boost and make it slide off the screen. Also when you got zapped by lightning, the closer you are to last, the faster you would recover, and none of that crap that if you ran into them they would get squashed, that was kind of stupid in the first place. Besides that, all the classic items we love are still there.
Just such awesome Item ideas
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Karts and Characters:
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Well in this game it was nice to as usual unlock characters and Karts. Except it was slightly different here, well when you came first in a GP etc then you would unlock a new character, which was really cool considering there is 12 characters, but the main thing here was the karts in this game. They were much different and there were 3 for each player which could be chosen by everyone after you had finished unlocking everything.
They also had their own stats, in past games, they were all the same, then the more recent ones it was light, medium, or heavy, and in Mario Kart DS it took the extra step and divided that up into even smaller ones, with their own stats, from handling, to speed, and how well it can drift, heck it even told you if the Kart got good items or not! And at first you may have only had access to a few, but once you had access to the whole lot, it was by far worth it!
With new arrivals of some characters like Dry Bones, and even R.O.B, it was a nice change, they also may have cut a few players out like Baby Mario and Luigi from Double Dash and good ol' Petey, but who is to complain, when they give you great carts anyway, and great characters, i am always happy.
With such a diversity of Karts, how can you go wrong?
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Conclusion:
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Mario Kart DS would have to be one of the best games i have ever played on the DS, but not only on the DS itself, but one of the best games i have ever played on any console, it gives such a wide range of things to do that will let you have endless amounts of fun with, or without friends to play it with. From Playing in Grand Prix's for the trophy, do doing really cool missions, all the way to playing Someone in Japan, America and England, all at the same time, in real time.
I have seen this game get top of the charts in best DS games of all time, and i think whoever put it up there has a right to. Not many games stand out as much as this one when it comes to how well it handles. Mario Kart DS take full advantage of the DS Handheld system. Being able to play with 8 friends on 8 levels with just 1! Mario Kart DS card! Wow. This game is truly up there in the top games list for me. And i recommend it to anyone out there that is looking for a game and doens't already have it.
A legendary and historic game on the Nintendo DS - 10/10
-Chambalam
Submitted by chambalam
04/08/2007
16
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