But that device basically became the price of entry to play Phantasy Star Online, and Nintendo's own first-party efforts had continued to regard the Internet with the same bemused confusion they'd been demonstrating since they produced the Famicom Modem back in 1988 and promptly did nothing of significance with it.īut Mario Kart DS showed the value in taking the slow approach. Even Nintendo had demonstrated some brute awareness that online play would eventually be important the GameCube included an expansion slot that a broadband adapter could fit into. Both Sony and Microsoft had made online important elements of their then-current consoles (and poor Dreamcast shipped with a modem!). That was a big deal online play had been a PC gaming commodity for a decade by the time MKDS rolled out. This was where DS's global domination truly began.Ī big part of what made MKDS feel so momentous, and one of the best features of the game itself, had to do with the fact that it marked Nintendo's first foray into online multiplayer gaming. It looked great on the diminutive screens and, along with games like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Animal Crossing: Wild World, helped announce to the world that this kooky dual-screen handheld Nintendo had rushed to market was a serious contender. Not only did it stand as the finest Mario Kart to date, it also proved that Nintendo was serious about the DS as a platform: Here was a console-quality experience, and the fact that the graphics were on par with a racer for the original PlayStation didn't matter one bit. Gone were the flat and uninspired tracks of the sprite-based games, the rubber-band AI of Mario Kart 64, and the loopy complications of Double Dash!! It offered great tracks, great balance, a wealth of customization options, and tons of unlockables. Peach has got it, but you already knew that. The fifth entry in the series, MKDS brought together the best elements of its predecessors and discarded their baggage. It walked back the entertaining but frankly weird additions Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for GameCube had made to the series, while nevertheless feeling far more robust than the previous handheld Mario Kart, Super Circuit for GBA. For starters, it felt like a truly great, truly uncompromised version of Mario Kart despite being on a portable system. See, when Nintendo launched the game in the fall of 2005, it represented a watershed moment on several levels. It took the series a few steps forward into greatness and managed to transcend the mundanity of merely driving in circles (with all due respect to our resident racing game fanatic Jaz). ![]() Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.ĭespite having little interest in racing, I couldn't stop playing Mario Kart DS back when it was new. ![]() ![]() Join us - cars behave differently on the road, obstacles move along the tracks and bonuses are scattered! Opponents can be pushed into the abyss and into boiling lava, and bonuses become a formidable weapon - take out the leader with a flying tortoise shell, feed the driver a mushroom and speed up! Become rainbow and sweep away everything in its path! On the top screen is a race, on the bottom is a radar: watch out for opponents! Mario Kart DS is more than racing: fight in arenas, butt giant bosses with a typewriter, inflate balls over it with a microphone! Mario Kart DS is a fabulous multiplayer: up to eight people wirelessly on one cartridge and four of them racing online! Mario Kart DS is a unique passion and dynamism: artificial skid gives acceleration, and the winner can never be predicted.This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. ![]() The cult characters - Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Bowser - got into cars of the most incredible kind and are preparing to sweep each other off the track.
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