The Mario Kart series has never been particularly serious - the previous three games were all fairly lightheated and light handling arcade-style kart racers where you drove a buzzing little vehicle half the size of the character driving it around a course while firing and avoiding various items. That's about all they were. Of course, different characters had different capabilities in terms of quick accleration / low top speed, balanced, and slow acceleration / high top speed. Add to that a number of power ups, from invincible stars to turtle shells (including the heat-seeking variety) and the much missed feather jump, and you had one hell of a crazy party experience. Mario Kart 64's alterations to the original game were forgiven in the light of the four-player modes, which added a lot to both the battle arenas as well as the courses themselves. Many of those courses were quite interesting in design and a lot of fun to race around. Then comes Mario Kart: Double Dash, which was hinted at years ago but no screenshots could be shown or it would give away the new gameplay mechanic. 'What could it be?' people wondered. Maybe it was a RPG-style mode in the vein of Car Battler Joe. Maybe Nintendo was going to cel-shade it just like they did with The Wind Waker. Then the news hit, and everyone sort of stared vacantly at two people riding on a single kart and the goofy graphics. Is it a gimmick, or does the two-character design allow for a vastly different Mario Kart experience? You can probably guess. The most significant addition to this game (other than two characters) involves character-specific items. There were some in the original game, although only the computer could use them - Toad would periodically drop mushrooms and Bowser would lob fireballs at you. But everyone has them in Double Dash in terms of the character pairs. Mario & Luigi have fireballs, Peach & Daisy have a shield of sorts, Koopa and Parakoopa have multiple shells, and Baby Mario & Baby Luigi have a massive chain-chomp that drags them for a short distance, annihilating everything in its path. They are all a welcome addition. The mechanics are mostly intact as well, though the karts can no longer 'hop.' In its absence you can still power-slide (as in 64) but the hop is missed, particularly in battle mode when hopping yourself around in a circle was amusing to taunt people. Then what's a step backwards? Well, everything else. The graphics are okay, but 'okay' sums it up. They are only a marginal improvement over the N64 version, and the only good thing that can be said is that the framerate is rock-solid. But with that low a polygon count, there's no reason why it shouldn't. The audio is forgettable. You have your usual assortment of voice quips from the various characters (you've heard them all before) and a generic sort of upbeat Mario music. Where the game really falters is in course design. The courses are awful. In the interest of quick races you might be able to say they're efficiently designed or something like that. But really, they're just boring. The only cup of races worth mentioning is the special cup, which is the only race that includes even somewhat interesting tracks. Everything else is done in a similar style to older games, but simplified. Were previous tracks too complicated? Mario Kart 64 had a great track set, from Wario's track to the branching Yoshi course and Toad's highway romp. Similar ones are in place here, although Waluigi's track is shadow of Wario's, Yoshi's course is just a plain raceway (albeit in the shape of a yoshi) and the traffic courses have such a sparse amount of traffic that it is barely worth mentioning. The battle tracks are even worse. Only two are worth playing, and one of those is locked off the bat. The other four are complete garbage, ranging from barren square courses to a pathetic homage to the 64's Block Fort where the block segments are completely out of reach. The effective area of the course is simply a grid. They are fun for a few battles, but get stale very fast. The simple solution would have been to import all the Mario Kart 64 tracks and include them as a bonus (like the GBA Mario Kart did with the original game's tracks). Perhaps that would have made too much sense, so instead we are given a pathetic selection of 22 tracks, only 6 of which are worth playing over and over. Everything else is solid enough, and were it not for the lack of courses the game would deserve a much higher score. As it stands, Nintendo does not deserve praise for dumbing-down the Mario Kart franchise. Pick up Mario Kart 64 instead.
Other Helpful Reviews for Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
The Good: Plenty of Mario flare, nice track design, great multi-player, the nice addition of different karts and characters. The Bad: This game may be a little too different for some players, enemy AI can be predictab... Read Full Review
Mario Kart: Double Dash is a great game on the GameCube. A game which everyone can enjoy, even gamers who don't like racing games, will certainly enjoy this one. The sequel to Mario Kart 64 has done its work, it has ... Read Full Review
