MarioKart DS (Nintendo DS) > Reviews (1)

Mario Kart has made it on to pretty much every Nintendo console around, and now its made its way onto the Nintendo DS.

Graphics on the tracks are comparable to Mario Kart 64 back in 1996, however the characters and karts are fully 3d instead of being 2d sprites like in Mario Kart 64.

Mario Kart DS features 16 completely new courses, a couple of them share the same names of previous games, such as Wario Stadium, Rainbow Road and Bowser's Castle, but they are new tracks. On top of the 16 new courses, it features 16 retro courses, 4 from the N64, 4 from the GC, 4 from the SNES and 4 from the GBA.

There are 13 characters in the game, 12 of them are available to all players, however an additional character, Shyguy was introduced for those without a gamecard who play with the download play feature of the game, when under download play there are 8 tracks playable and 1 character playable. There were 3 characters that had never been in a Mario Kart game before, Shy Guy, Dry Bones and R.O.B. Shy Guy and R.O.B were removed from Mario Kart Wii however. Each character has 3 karts available to him, making a total of 39 karts, however as Shy Guy is available only to download play users, you will only be able to use 36 of these karts, unless your the recipient of a download play version of the game.

Mario Kart DS took advantage of the DS' Wi-fi Connection feature, allowing players to play 4 player matches online, however only half of the tracks are available to play over WFC. It also supports LAN play through either download play or multi-card play. Multi-card play is the only multiplayer mode to allow all characters and all courses. Both download play and multi-card play support 8 players, and AI will feature in LAN races. I believe multi-card and download play modes support the games Battle Mode feature, i know for a fact that the Battle mode is not accessible using the Wi-Fi connection feature.

A new mode introduced is the Mission mode, in which the players must complete certain objectives on various courses, such as doing a certain amount of drifts in a lap whilst still finishing the race in a good amount of time, or beating a time trial. NPC's rarely feature in missions.

Really i quite enjoyed this game, its worth buying even if you own Mario Kart Wii, as its portable. They used the DS' dual screens well, with the top screen portraying the usual 3rd person view of the kart, whilst the bottom screen either displayed a normal map of the course and player positions, or a zoomed in view, showing the part of the course on which the player is racing. I think the best multiplayer mode is easily multi-card, as you can have all the courses and have 8 players and still have AI racers.

Mario Kart 7 is a great improvement, offering all 32 tracks in all 3 forms of multiplayer (download play, multi card and online). And also allows 8 players in all modes.