Mario Kart 64SYSTEM: Nintendo 64
DEVELOPER: Nintendo- (Created by Shigeru Miyamoto)
PRODUCER: Nintendo
PRICE: $69.99
RATED: Kids to Adults
One thing I'm sure glad about is, although the Nintendo 64 only has a handful of titles, the ones it has are generally good. It's now October of 1997, and the Nintendo titles can still be counted on your fingers. We bought our N64 in December 96, as a Christmas gift, and have only accumilated 3 games for it.
I know there have been more games released, and I've played many of them. Yet, I have to be real choosey about what I buy when the average Nintendo game costs $70.00. I own most other 32/64 bit systems also, so my game buying decisions always come down to a cost/fun factor. I know that there are many great Playstation and Saturn games out there that can be had at a fraction of the cost of an N64 game. I usually have to make the determination on just how much fun the N64 game could be.
With that off my mind, I'll now review Mario Kart 64.
Mario Kart 64 is every bit worth the $70.00 that we paid for it. All the fine details of the game were done to near perfection. The game we got has been played on and off by us for this entire year. That's pretty good considering I have literally hundreds (thousands if you count shareware) games in which I could be playing.
All the Nintendo characters that you'd expect are in this game. They are: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser. You have the ability to choose from each of them, and your karts performance is affected by the weight of each character. For example, If you choose Peach, you will go very fast, but don't have much weight to stick to the curves. Donkey Kong, on the other hand, is slow, but can make very tight corners.
Gameplay variation was well thought out in this game. In addition to the ability to choose characters, you also have 3 classes of karts to choose from. They are: 50cc, 100cc, 150cc. The 50cc kart being the slow machine that needs to choose paths well. The 150cc machine that is fast and needs to be very careful or it will overshoot corners. The 100cc machine rests somewhere in between the two.
There are 4 cups (races) to compete in. They are: Mushroom cup, Flower cup, Star cup, and Special cup. Each cup gets progressively harder, with the real killer being the Special cup. You pick your cup, then you begin a series of races to complete the cup.
The tracks are well designed, varied, and completely fun to race on. Sometimes you are going over huge jumps on a motocross type track, and other times you are weaving in and out of traffic with semi trucks close enough to touch. There are also ice tracks, beaches, rainbow tracks, castle tracks, ect.. Nintendo put much thought in the design of this game.
What makes this game special, it all of the little "extra touches" that were added to it's design. The character selections, track selections, 4 player mode, time trial mode, power ups, ect.. all work togather to make this game a classic.
In conclusion, i'd just like to say Mario Kart 64 is one super game. I wouldn't suggest buying a Nintendo 64 only for this game, but if you already have one, this is a must buy game. It's well worth your money!
RATINGS
GRAPHICS 95%
SOUND 90%
GAMEPLAY 98%
ORIGINALITY 90%
REPLAY VALUE 98%
OVERALL 94.2%
