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Mario Kart Double Dash - GameCube Savior Or Rehash?
Thanks to GamesDomain for its review of Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube, as the reviewer rates Nintendo's latest kart update very highly, but comments that "...more seasoned gamers may grumble a tad at the general lack of progress", a view occasionally echoed by the overwhelmingly glowing reception from other sites, reminiscent of the (cynically?) subdued positivity regarding Soul Calibur II's release. However, IGN Cube is more critical still, suggesting the game "doesn't progress far beyond the N64 version other than in the visual department... [and] introduces new imbalances to the item system", plus "has axed a few trusted control mechanics like the hop." As for the title's reception outside the U.S., EuroGamer rectifies IGN's downer angle, and C+VG reports significant sales in Japan, with a knock-on effect for GameCube hardware, and a similar effect in the UK for a Mario Kart-including hardware bundle.
It's MARIO KART. It's GOING to be good
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
The Mario Kart Double Dash that I played for the first time yesterday was a huge leap in progress compared to the SNES and N64 games.
First of all, the multiplayer co-op mode! Hello? Did you reviewers just not notice it? Or do you not know anyone else you can play it with? Lemme explain the co-op mode: One person steers, the other mans the weapons and does the power slides. And you can swap places! I'd file this one under "progress" people.
The reviews sound like this is Mario64 in GC graphics. It's not. This is a new Mario Kart game that represents the most progress in the series to date.
So slashdotters: Don't believe the reviews, they're mostly wrong. If you liked Mario Kart on SNES or N64, you'll love what they've done with it on the GC. It's that simple. If you don't like Mario Kart games, it's worth renting as the co-op mode might win you over.
End rant. Heh.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I thought that Mario Kart 64 was alright. A cute little racing game staring Nintendo mascot characters that was fun for a bit. After a few times playing it, you could see a couple flaws.
1. Multiplayer is where it's at. If you don't have 2 or 3 friends that will squint at their own corner of the screen, don't bother. Single player suffers from cheating computer opponents that are always a few mishaps away. It doesn't matter if your driving is average or perfect, once they are behind you, they will pass you the moment you make a mistake. Not fun at all.
2. Items are overpowering. Once you find out which items do what, you'll always go for the god-like lightning bolt. The items that require some skill to use are shoved to the side.
Mario Kart: Double Dash is supposed to support LAN play. that would be nice for people that already have Gamecubes and BBAs so it's a step in the right direction. I'll give it a chance before condemning it. Sure it's more of the same, but there are so many knock-offs that want to be.
I got Mario Kart yesterday. I'm very happy with it. I've never played the original Mario Kart, but I do own Mario Kart 64.
In MK64, I've never been able to consistently manage to avoid slipping on a bananna peel. It was frustrating when I played against someone who could, as it made the peels useless. So I'm glad they took that out.
Item management is much more interesting now. You can now lose items by getting hit. If you hit people the right way, you can steal their items. Dropped items fall onto the course, and become live. Really sucks to get a turtle shell knocked out of your hand, then have it land right in front of you and hit you as soon as you start moving again.
The two characters adds to the handling of the cart as well. Weight distribution affects turning.
I greatly disagree with IGN's comments that the courses are uninspired. Although they seem to draw a lot from MK64's ideas, I find the new courses more interesting. I especially liked the cruise ship course; I thought it was an interesting new course.
Although I liked Mario Kart 64, I never got into it as much as a game like say Smash Bros. I'm really liking Double Dash so far, I definately think it's a much better game than the previous one.
Quite honestly, I don't see how people can trash Double Dash but give Wind Waker high scores. Wind Waker was a step backwards compared to the previous game (lots of flaws in the game compared to past Zeldas...), but Double Dash doesn't seem to have any steps backward, unless you're mad that they've taken away the ability for experts to totally destroy newbies.
After all, we know how spot-on IGNs reviews are and how well they correspond to the tastes of their readers.
You have the drift control, it's basically hop without the hop. Using it effectively still helps your speed out a ton, just doesn't look as fun, I suppose.
http://goldysmom.blogspot.com
WARNING: I havn't played single player yet. So I'm not going to comment on that.
Now, having said that, multiplayer is great. The new battle modes are fun...having the 2 characters per kart is a nice addition. Everyone sitting around playing this game is a total blast.
This game is all about the multiplayer. Heck, while the single player mode was fun in MK64, multiplayer was the reason it stayed in my N64. And the same will be for DD.
I wasn't going to purchase this game at all a couple of months ago...but then I picked up Soul Calibur 2 and my friends started playing against me. Now I have 4 controllers and we're gonna lose a lot of time playing this.
If you've got buddies you play with, pick the game up. You'll enjoy it. Especially if you can gain access to a video projector at your local university's 2000 seat theater. *cough*
Every time a guy gets a threesome, somewhere in heaven an angel gets his wings. --Cary Tennis
First of all, the levels are a little repetitive of the 64 version yes, but that doesn't mean that they aren't fun. The Cruise Ship level is a blast, as is the DK race. Wario's track is amazing too, so much chaos all at once.
The single player mode still suffers a little bit from cheating AI. They'll really nail you when you get out in front, especially 150 cc. I still haven't gotten the gold in all of them yet, after several hours of play (read, stayed up all damn night). But who cares, it's all about the multiplayer anyway.
Multiplayer quite simply rocks. The challenge of the races with friends on your tail is an absolute blast. So are the baloon and bomb modes, though the Shine mode of play leaves something to be desired.
Coop mode on multiplayer is definitely revolutionary in the Mario Kart world. Having eight guys play on two cubes is a blast and a half. The cooperation with your partner keeps the game fun practically forever. I love the fact that you can play on 8 cubes with 8 people, though I have yet to experience it, I'm sure we will.
All in all, a great buy, well worth the money. As a college student, nothing better on the weekends than getting hammed and playing great party games like this one.
hed.
http://goldysmom.blogspot.com
PS - Please don't bring up third-party Internet hacks/workarounds. Nice as such solutions might be, they don't measure up to building the capability into the game from the ground up.
Lemme get this straight.. out of ALL the things in the game that could be complained about, IGN goes and complains about the removal of the HOP?! Wtf? What are they going to give Half-Life 2 a bad rating if the crowbar is not in the game? Will they shun the Metal Gear series if they don't use boxes anymore? Jeez, talk about nitpicking.
Yet all these years later I still play and love MK64. I fully expect history to repeat.
I picked it up yesterday, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. My last Mario Kart experience was Super Mario Kart, back in my college dorm room. It was a popular place for people to hang out at, and the game got a lot of use.
Compared to SMK, there is a lot of advancement here. Sure, I really miss the ghost tracks and the feather, but the feel is most definitely still there. As I never touched the N64 version (never touched an N64 period), I can't compare it. But does it have to be a huge revolution from Mario Kart 64? It's not like that's all that matters. If it's a great game, it doesn't matter how much or how little is new - just as long as it's fun!
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Man, I don't understand what IGN is crying about, the BEST part about the hop is still in the game in the form of RESPONSIVE drifting controls. The hop didn't do anything for anyone, I'm GLAD it's gone! Now I can drift in peace without the small delay the hop left in it's wake! Drifting in this game rocks, makes me feel like i'm playing Initial D :D
It's a blast so far, hell i'm turned away from it right now as I type this, just completed the cruise ship course on 100cc woot!
I can't speak for anyone else, but I never owned a Nintendo 64. I know I can't be the only one.
Why, exactly, would "it's too much like Mario Kart 64" be a problem to me?
I basically view the Gamecube and its games as the N64 if the N64 had been done right, anyway.
I do think it's too bad you cannot jump, though, furiously hopping around was my favorite part of Super Mario Kart.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well as a certified mario Kart god, having logged millions of hours and having missed millions of classes during my undergrad due to both Mariokart and Marioklart64, I can say its good, the races themselves are a bit more exciting than 64's tracks but there isn't all that much new here. And it is definately harder than MK64 was though not as tough as some of the 150cc tracks in the original.
The two characters per cart is good idea though, and while the intial selection of carts is a little thin, there are a lot of aditional carts to unlock and even 4 hidden characters. The hop? no real loss there. With it's omission the steering becomes a bit more responsive since you can enter a power slide that much quicker. Not being able to hold an item behind the cart elminates some of my old cheese tricks (like lag back, get an invulnerable spinny shell and then hold it behind you for a indestructable rear shield and a melee attack) 2 of the default battle arenas are a bit lame, but the Luigi's Mansion arena is sweet. So all in all i think things balance out pretty good.
If you liked the other MK's you are going to like this one about as much so just go buy it already.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
you could dodge shells, maybe.
In 64 if you timed the jump perfectly the attack would go under you, but the timing was dicey at the best of times. I played a lot of the game, and if I saw the attack coming I could hop it maybe a quarter of the time.(If I wasn't drunk which I usually was when playing multiplayer) Anyone who claims you could hop anything all the time is a liar.
DD has a lot of ways to avoid taking hits. Red shells can actually be out manuvered now, and you can still take them out with another weapon, defense is harder to do than it was in 64 but i think that makes for a better game.
I'm with you, I dodge attacks far more consistently with a responsive powerslide than I ever did with that stupid hop.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
You know, I can see somebody spending 5 minutes with the game and complaining that it's not much different from Mario Kart 64. Play it a little longer than that, and a bunch of things come to light:
- The GCN version uses 3D models instead of the pre-rendered sprites like the 64-bit version did. The difference? Now you can choose your vehicle. Different character combinations result in different behaviour from the karts. Result? You can have your own individual style while you drive. Play a few races against a friend, and the difference slowly seeps in.
- The GCN version is much higher res, plus much smoother frame rate. That alone makes the multiplayer so much easier to play.
- The GCN version has the broadband adapter support. Presumably this means you can have two GCs in different rooms playing against each other. I'd *love* to play the battle modes without being able to see the otehr person's screen.
- The 2 driver addition adds some interesting subtleties to the game. For example, if you get bumped hard, the occupant gets dragged across the ground for a while before he hops back on. You notice this when you find yourself unable to swap drivers for a bit. Managing two items (one per occupant) really deepens the strategy to the game. My gf was a littler perterbed at me last night because I held on to a fire flower until the end of the race. I blasted her just long enough to cross the finish line first. To put it another way, strategy in this version of the game has a broader meaning than it did in the 64 version,
- The maps are far more imaginitive. As mentioned before by another poster here, the DK level is a blast. (no pun intended.) Much more challenging, and entertaining to boot. It's hard to describe with words, but I can tell you that the map upgrades have been quite noticable.
- There are two more battle modes to this game than in the 64 version, and they are far more entertaining. Not only do they require more skill than luck, but at times they are quite suspenseful. When you play the star battle mode (the name escapes me) when you score, it takes a point from the other person. The goal is to reach 3 points. My gf and I had a lot of fun with that one last night.
This is just the stuff off the top of my tired mind. There's more to it, though lots of it is subtle. Take any of these features on their own, and it doesn't sound so exciting. Take the way everything wraps up together in one big package, and you'll find the game to be much more entertaining than the 64 version. It really is a cool game. Revolutionary? Eh, maybe not. But it's been years since a Mario Kart game was made, and the work put into this one shows.
Sometimes I wonder if reviewers are just jaded. I mean, if it was just a re-release of MK64 with high res 60fps graphics, I'd understand. There's a lot more here. The only real complaint I guess they could have is that, on a fundamental level, it's still the same formula.
"Derp de derp."
I hope you naysayers will be just critical when Crash Nitro Kart comes out and doesn't present a massive leap forward in kart game technology. OMG teh tracks are uninspired! Coco has the same voice sample! why more crates again!
Another reason for losing the hop might be to cut down on some of the ridiculous shortcuts that MK64 allowed through hop abuse. Now you need specifically placed scenery to launch you into the air, there's less chance of players locating glitchy shortcuts (though I'm sure some still exist). I notice on Rainbow Road that the game was quick to reset me after I fell off, even though I was heading toward a later section of the track, which was interesting. The big jump on MK64 Rainbow Road was great - 3,2,1, go, and everyone's immediately jostling to get over the barrier...
My first impression of the game was, oh great, they dropped the ball. After another 10 hours into the game, I think it's right on par with MK64. I belong to the camp that MK64 was better than the original.
There is a lot of talk that MKDD didn't push the game as far as it could have gone. That there were no significant updates to the game. And that it is nothing more than a rehash. My comment to that is, what did you expect? It's Mario Kart. It follows the Mario Kart formula. If it didn't, it wouldn't be Mario Kart. I even read one review that claimed it captured they magic of the previous MK titles, but then bashed it for being the same as the previous MK titles.
My friends and I played MK64 for 3 years in college. And even to this day, when I see those friends, we pull out the MK64. I've never played a game that had such a lasting value. I personally applaud Nintendo for making the changes they made while still sticking to the formula.
So if you are going to complain about it not being a big leap over the MK titles of the past, the least you could do is suggest what you would have liked put into the game. Complaining that it's just the same game is redundant at this point.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
You're looney tunes, my man.
You're pulling some kind of weird theory out your ass, but you are not actually saying anything. Facts? What facts?
It seems like you're throwing a fit, cuz nintendo games aren't marketed directly to you. (They market toward a child-friendly GENERAL audience)
If you don't like MK:DD, then say so, but lets keep this about the GAMES and not some lame consipracy theory.
FUNK!
Eternal Darkness IMHO wasn't all that popular of a game. Metroid Prime on the other hand was a lot more popular even though for some users such as myself it did have the occasional freezing problem.
I fail to see how this is a problem. In the 80's when the home consoles died down until Nintendo revamped the industry in 1985 with the NES, there were not a lot of people around who had the skills to create video games so naturally the gaming companies hired the people they could and developed everything in house.
Now come some 20-25 years later and you see Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and literally doezens of other video and PC game companies not doing half as much in source developing as they used to. The way I view it it's not a problem, especially since it gives other companies the fame and experience if the game is succesful and it leaves Nintendo and other companies free to focus on other aspects of a game or even other projects.
I honestly do not believe Metroid Prime wouldn't have been as good as it was if all the work would have been done in-house.
It tells us they have a desire to make better games just like Sony, Microsoft, and all the other companies out there!
If they did not care about the games anymore we would not have LARGE software libraries for the Gamecube and GBC/GBA/GBA SP, not to mention all the other titles ever released for NES/SNES/N64 and GB to say the least.
Funny I don't see much Pokemon in Wal-mart or Toys R US nowadays, and as for the Pokemon trading cards I don't even know if Nintendo handles that, it may likely be a card company like Wizards or somesuch that produces and sells the cards on behalf of Nintendo.
If that were true we'd be seeing a massive flood of Mario, Metroid, Soul Calibur II, Zelda, Sonic and other toys in Wal-Mart and other large stores. Since the only toys I ever recall seeing here in Canada once in a blue moon was the occasional toy based off Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart from the N64, clearly toys are not Nintendo's main business to make plushies and plastic figures.
I believe this is what has been done with Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64 already. The same probably applies to all the famous (or is that infamous) games on the Playstation too.
I don't see what you replied as facts, more as mere speculation on how you believe the market and Nintendo is currently. You also neglected to mention that since Nintendo did a price drop for the Gamecube in the USA, Canada, and all of Europe, Hardware sales have quadrupled and software sales are more then double what they were in November 2002. Proof? Here's a
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy