Kart racing at its best!
Mario Kart has always been the king of the kart racing genre. Its always featured the creativity, speed, and overall addictive gameplay that sets it apart from all the other kart games that clearly rip it off. And the Nintendo ds addition to Mario Kart is nothing short of awesome! You get plenty of tracks new and old to play on. All your favorite characters (including one surprise), and to top it off - online multiplayer! Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is Mario Kart's finest installment. For a Nintendo ds game, the graphics are quite nice, Mario and his pals look just as good as they do on the consoles and the tracks (especially the new ones) look very nice. Most of the new tracks are nice to play on, although some of the "classic" (not all of them are) are quite boring and not exciting to play on. You can play in circuit mode with three different kart speeds, as well as a mission mode, free-race mode, and battle mode, which is plenty of game to keep you busy for weeks. But once you've finished them all, or just want something different, you can race friends (and rivals) over Nintendo's (new at the time) Wi-fi Connection. (WFC) All of matches are lag free and fun, although there are a few draw-backs. You can only do a standard race mode with 4 players, (instead of 8 in single-player), you can only race with the 50cc karts (the slowest tier), you can only play on select tracks, and joining matches can take a long time. (Keep a book handy.) Other than that, online play is solid and addictive. Mario Kart is a perfect purchase for any Nintendo, Mario, Racing, or Gaming fan.
