Mario Kart 64

UK box art.

Mario Kart 64 is a Mario-themed racing game produced by Nintendo and released for the Nintendo 64 on 1996-12-14.

I first saw this game being played by the boyfriend of the sister of a girl I was dating at the time (around 1996-97). I first played it at the house of some friends who I played Magic: The Gathering with. Though I was quite terrible, I was rather impressed with the game. I've now gotten pretty good at it, and can E-slide fairly well. However, I haven't made much of an attempt to beat the game because I despise the rubberband AI.

Status

I do not own this game, and I have not beaten it.

Review

7	7	6	7	10

Best Version: 74%

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game is pretty great looking. Each track has it's own character and they incorporated a lot of Mario elements.
• Kenta Nagata's music, while not that listenable by itself, makes a wonderful backdrop for the tracks. Rainbow Road and the ending theme ("Victory Lap") are especially good.
• The variations of driver attributes accommodates different play styles nicely.
• The several modes (race against the AI, race against a friend, battle more, and time trials) give the game more life.
• Being able to unlock the mirror mode was a good reward for beating the tracks on their most difficult levels, and a nice way to give the game more life.

Bad

• The game appears to not properly maintain FPS in certain tracks with 3 or more players, like Moo Moo Farm. This is most likely due to the GPU not being able to handle all four rendered screens and the programmers removing the frame-delimiter.
• Over the years, players have managed to find quite a few bugs with the track that can be exploited in multiplayer.

Ugly

• I hate games where the AI gets an unfair advantage, and this game is pretty awful at it. It uses a "rubberband AI" where, no matter how good you are, or how bad you damage the other racers, two opponent carts will always be on your tail because they will receive a speed advantage beyond what you can possibly achieve. This is a lazy approach to throttling difficulty.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The original Japanese art features a determined Mario with the names of the other drivers written on the wall of a tire in the background.

• 

  North America, UK, and Australia use this this art (Europe uses the same art, but with a thick black border). This shows Mario grinning as he takes the lead past the three heavy drivers with a nice motion blur indicating speed. I prefer this box art.

Documentation

• 

  Game manual.

• 

  Operation card.

• 

  Game manual (Australia).

• 

  Game manual (Europe).

• 

  Japanese ad.

Maps

• 

  Luigi Raceway.

• 

  Moo Moo Farm.

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  Koopa Troopa Beach.

• 

  Kalimari Desert.

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  Luigi Raceway.

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  Frappe Snowland.

• 

  Choco Mountain.

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  Mario Raceway.

• 

  Wario Stadium.

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  Sherbet Land.

• 

  Royal Raceway.

• 

  Bowser's Castle.

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  DK's Jungle Parkway.

• 

  Yoshi Valley.

• 

  Banshee Boardwalk.

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  Rainbow Road.

• 

  Big Donut.

• 

  Block Fort.

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  Double Deck.

• 

  Skyscraper.

Graphics

• textures-resource.com/nintendo_64/mariokart64 - Textures.

Videos

• youtube.com/watch?v=gGI8YXKW3G0 - Son of a Glitch.
• youtube.com/watch?v=ASWgJvuQhTA - Longplay, 150cc,

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
Chinese	马里奥卡丁车64		Mario Kart 64
English	Mario Kart 64
Japanese	マリオカート64	Mario Kato 64	Mario Kart 64

Links