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 rubber band AI. In fact, for this very reason, I prefer Diddy Kong Racing.

Status

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

Review

7	7	6	7	10

Best Version: Nintendo 64

— 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, which appears to have been purposely made simple as to not interfere with the game, 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 tracks 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. What this means for game play is that two opponents will always dog you for the entire race, making the game less about getting good at driving, and more about holding a good item in reserve until the very last section of the final lap.

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

• Mario Kart 64 - N64 - Manual.pdf

  Game manual.

• Mario Kart 64 - N64 - Operation Card.pdf

  Operation card.

• Mario Kart 64 - N64 - Manual (Australia).pdf

  Game manual (Australia).

• Mario Kart 64 - N64 - Manual (Europe).pdf

  Game manual (Europe).

• 

  Japanese ad.

Maps

• 

  Luigi Raceway.

• 

  Moo Moo Farm.

• 

  Koopa Troopa Beach.

• 

  Kalimari Desert.

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  Luigi Raceway.

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  Frappe Snowland.

• 

  Choco Mountain.

• 

  Mario Raceway.

• 

  Wario Stadium.

• 

  Sherbet Land.

• 

  Royal Raceway.

• 

  Bowser's Castle.

• 

  DK's Jungle Parkway.

• 

  Yoshi Valley.

• 

  Banshee Boardwalk.

• 

  Rainbow Road.

• 

  Big Donut.

• 

  Block Fort.

• 

  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