Awesome party game!!

My roommates and I hardly ever go a full day without playing MarioKart64! The multiplayer versus races are by far the best feature, in my opinion. The cup races are fun for a short time, but they get old pretty fast. If you play with others who've played many MANY times, the challenges never end! Hone your green shell sniping skills and set banana and fake item box traps in strategic locations (especially on ramps).

For those of you new to MK64, there are 8 drivers to choose from: Toad, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Mario, Luigi, Wario, Donkey Kong, and Bowser (my personal favorite). There are 4 cup series you can race in--Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special--and each contains 4 tracks. To win a cup series you must place first in overall points at the end of the 4 races, with 9 points for first, 6 for second, 3 for third, 1 for fourth, and 0 for fifth-eighth. This is just like in the original Mario Kart for Super Nintendo (which is also awesome!).

For multi-player (2-4), you have the option for multiplayer cup racing (just like single player cup racing, but you compete against your friends as well as the CPU drivers), multiplayer versus racing, and battle. As I've already mentioned, I personally feel the multiplayer versus option is by far the best. It's fun to challenge your friends and see who's the best. Plus it's a great way to pass the time. Multiplayer battles are fun too, but not as good as in the original game. You still have 3 balloons circling your kart, and each time you get hit you lose a balloon. One place where MK64 differs from the original MarioKart is the first player to lose all his/her balloons then transforms into a bomb kart, which can drive around, run into another player, and detonate. It serves as a good way to get revenge on whoever killed you.

All in all, MarioKart64 is a great game to play if you're looking for something fun to play with a group of friends. We've even set up full on tournaments with bracket systems and everything. Lots of fun. This game never gets old!

If you own a Nintendo 64, you're probably going to buy this game so do it!

Super Mario Kart, one of the greatest head-to-head titles ever released for the cartridge systems, is back, this time for the Nintendo 64. There's a whole new set of courses, new racers, slick 3-D graphics, and most surprisingly, a four-player simultaneous play option. This should all be great news to Mario Kart fans, and in fact it is - sort of.

Don't get me wrong: There's nothing really wrong with the new Mario Kart - the increasingly rotund plumber and his jolly crew have never looked and sounded so good. And from Wario's penguin-like mumblings to the glittering crown on the Princess'- head, it's obvious that the design team was plenty willing to get down and dirty with the presentation aspects of the game. The addition of more detailed sliding techniques and a few new nasty things to distract (read: crash) your opponents are welcome features (the deadly lightning bolt just can't be beat for dispensing raw fear). But once you get past the predictable new additions, you begin to realize that there's really not much depth to Mario Kart 64.

History has shown us plenty of titles that featured the very best sound and graphics money could buy which still somehow ended up being not much fun to play - Killer Instinct, Rebel Assault, and Tomb Raider all come to mind. While Mario Kart 64 is certainly better than most of these titles, it still shows a lack of solid play design that really hurts its long-term play value. First off, and perhaps most importantly, single-play mode is just too easy. This is due in part to the game's extra wide tracks, and in part to the poor AI routines - which deliver opponents who seem more like they're on their way to the local convenience store than in an all-out race for the finish line. This same lack of play consideration also infects the super-large battle courses. The result is that players can (and do) drive around for minutes without even spotting an opponent - much less getting a chance to score a hit. None of these problems ever really destroys the game entirely, but they do make it more difficult to get excited about picking up the controller for more than a handful of races. This is a big surprise considering Nintendo has built its empire on solid control and design in its games.

If you own a Nintendo 64, you're probably going to buy this game whether or not you read and heed this review - after all, there aren't really a lot of N64 games to choose from, and it IS a Mario title. Fair enough. The thing is, even with all its bells and whistles, Mario Kart 64 is very likely to disappoint you after about a week. I wouldn't feel right about not giving you that warning. That said, I'm off to Mario Kart on my SNES to reminisce about the good old days, and dream of what this cartridge could have been.

One of the best multiplayer games ever.

This is one of the best multi-player games of all time. Mario Kart 64, like its predecessor for the super nintendo, features a race and a battle mode. There are 16 race courses and 4 battles courses. My friends are divided as to whether race or battle mode is better. I know some people who prefer the cute graphics and handicapping that allows players of different levels to compete on race mode, and people who love the cut-throat hair-on-edge feeling of a good battle. In any case, the game works as before, where the screen divides into 4 quadrants and each player controls his player in his quadrant. The usual cast of characters is
here again, Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Toadstool, etc.

I think the handicapping is a little too prounounced in race mode. That is to say, if you get really far ahead of the pack, the powerup's you start receiving are terrible, like green turtle shells or banana peels. I know I know, the banana peel can be a lethal weapon, but only because if some does fall for a banana peel, the sheer hilarity of watching that guy sputter out of control and start cursing the living daylights is worth it. But here's the thing. If you are way in last place, you'll find yourself getting infinite mushroom after infinite mushroom, and pretty soon you're neck and neck with the first place guy. What this means is the way you drive for the first 3 laps doesn't really matter. So I feel like it disincents people from taking the race seriously the whole way through, and what ends up determining the winner is who is in 3rd place on the final lap and in a position to get the next infinite mushroom. On the flip side, is you can play with anyone, expert of beginner, and keep it interesting. That
can be nice if you have friends with lives who don't spend every hour trying to nail the shortcut in koopa beach, but want to be able to enjoy the wonders of rainbow road.

Battle mode is arguably how this francise made its name, and in 64, Nintendo ups the ante with multidimensional battle courses that span the highly claustrophobic (sky tower) to the cavernous (doughnut) to the labyrinth (the green level) to the all out jungle warfare (blockfort). The great thing about these levels is they offer something for everyone. If you are looking for a quick game before heading off to dinner, you can choose doughnut or the sky tower. If you are looking for all out combat, and don't mind a 30 minute
dogfight, you have blockfort and the green level to choose from. Each of these levels is so physically different that it affords so many different strategies for beating your opponents. I mentioned how funny it is when one of your friends slips on a banana peel in race mode. Well in battle mode, it is a hundred times funnier, since that means they lose a balloon and are much closer to defeat.

There is so much memorable stuff from this game, from racing backwards on the highway against traffic to morphing into a bomb once you are defeated in battle mode. From the golden age of the 64, this is a must have for any one who loves a good multiplayer game.

"Classic" Mario Kart

The first of the Mario Kart series to introduce the 'power slide' maneuver, this 1997 (1996 in Japan) successor to the widely-popular Super Nintendo original has been considered among the best, if not the best, game of the franchise.

One of many incredibly-successful Mario games for the N64 (others include Mario Tennis, Mario 64, Mario Party(ies), Mario Golf, Dr Mario 64, Paper Mario, and a cameo in Super Smash Brothers) that, like its cousins, featured excellent multi-player action. Mario Kart 64 has excellent combat and racing modes, and is the first of the saga to allow you to race against your 'ghost' in Time Trial mode.

The only qualms I have with this game are that you cannot save your ghost data (or any other 'record' data) without having a little N64 memory device plugged into your controller. This isn't really a problem with the game itself, just how most N64's save their data (sucks). Playability wise, this game gives hours upon hours of entertainment, and revolutionizes a lot of the original steering/sliding/combat techniques used in all later versions.

-AB

A fun time passing racer!

A fun time passing racer!
-The Good
-Multiplayer
-Battle Modes
-The Bad
-Graphics
-Lack of Modes of Play
-The Summary
-A good racing game, if you’re willing play many courses on end with that (besides battle mode) being the only thing you can do. Other than that, there are many interesting and genuinely fun tracks to race on! There are 16 tracks (4 per Racing Cup) to race on, not including battle arenas. You can race and battle on these tracks using 4 classic Mario characters.
Racing is fun, but when you’re all raced out, you can battle with up to three friends in on of the four battle arenas. In battle, you must fight for your survival using various pick-ups, such as shell and bananas. You must hold on to your three balloons, or you’ll turn into a bomb on wheels (literally)!

-thepokeson