My buddy is on a quest to play every mainline Mario Kart and rank their courses against each other, so I decided to join him on this adventure.
Mario Kart 64 is one of those games that's best played at parties where alcohol is flowing and no one has to drive anywhere for hours, because the controls of this game handle like a drunk driver. The drifting is so sensitive, I only ever found it useful on tracks with wide open turns. Attempting to drift on narrow, hairpin turns will magnetize you to the nearest wall/edge. And because someone at Nintendo hates fun, they decided that if you steer too hard in one direction or attempt to change steering directions too fast, you'll spin yourself out, because that's totally fitting for an arcade racer.
It's not just the karts that are working against the player, the items are, too. The items are straight up unfinished; their programming was completed 50% and Nintendo shipped the game yesterday. Sometimes red shells will chase your target to the ends of the earth [SHOOOOCKEEEEEEEER!] and sometimes they'll decide existence is pain and end their own lives against the nearest wall a foot from where you shot it. Sometimes a banana peel will slip you up as normal, sometimes it'll maintain your momentum and slow you down for a second before returning to your top speed. During our playthrough of all four cups, I straight up out sped my own green shell and hit myself with it. And this isn't even to mention how wonky the physics can be sometimes, how picky it can be with what constitutes out of bounds or not, the CPUs that straight up cheat with their rubberbanding, and the goddamn hell nightmare that is Banshee Boardwalk. All my homies hate Banshee Boardwalk. In 150cc, the game goes from an easy first two cups to a difficulty wall for the last two. It won't let you advance unless one of you get top 4, and places 5-8 don't get any points, meaning getting 5th is just as bad as getting last place in a game with eight racers.
With all that being said, this game sucks to play by yourself, wallowing in your own misery with no one to scream out to... but multiplayer... this game gets good again. Obviously the more the merrier, but when you have a friend (and maybe a buzz going around the room) the game's worst aspects turn into its funniest moments, and you'll be shouting in anger and excitement all the while. It's too hard for me to get upset about the game's faults when I'm too busy laughing at watching my friend get wombo combo-ed by multiple items back-to-back, causing him to miss a scripted jump and die. And Battle Mode? Oh man: get four friends, boot up Block Fort, and the war is on.
Mario Kart 64 gets a big bump for its multiplayer, as playing it alone will induce feelings of unalive. The aesthetic and theming of the game based on advertisements and sponsors a la professional racing is also neat. It's far from perfect, but if you want tight controls, just play 8 Deluxe. If you choose violence, play Mario Kart 64.
Mario Kart 64 is one of those games that's best played at parties where alcohol is flowing and no one has to drive anywhere for hours, because the controls of this game handle like a drunk driver. The drifting is so sensitive, I only ever found it useful on tracks with wide open turns. Attempting to drift on narrow, hairpin turns will magnetize you to the nearest wall/edge. And because someone at Nintendo hates fun, they decided that if you steer too hard in one direction or attempt to change steering directions too fast, you'll spin yourself out, because that's totally fitting for an arcade racer.
It's not just the karts that are working against the player, the items are, too. The items are straight up unfinished; their programming was completed 50% and Nintendo shipped the game yesterday. Sometimes red shells will chase your target to the ends of the earth [SHOOOOCKEEEEEEEER!] and sometimes they'll decide existence is pain and end their own lives against the nearest wall a foot from where you shot it. Sometimes a banana peel will slip you up as normal, sometimes it'll maintain your momentum and slow you down for a second before returning to your top speed. During our playthrough of all four cups, I straight up out sped my own green shell and hit myself with it. And this isn't even to mention how wonky the physics can be sometimes, how picky it can be with what constitutes out of bounds or not, the CPUs that straight up cheat with their rubberbanding, and the goddamn hell nightmare that is Banshee Boardwalk. All my homies hate Banshee Boardwalk. In 150cc, the game goes from an easy first two cups to a difficulty wall for the last two. It won't let you advance unless one of you get top 4, and places 5-8 don't get any points, meaning getting 5th is just as bad as getting last place in a game with eight racers.
With all that being said, this game sucks to play by yourself, wallowing in your own misery with no one to scream out to... but multiplayer... this game gets good again. Obviously the more the merrier, but when you have a friend (and maybe a buzz going around the room) the game's worst aspects turn into its funniest moments, and you'll be shouting in anger and excitement all the while. It's too hard for me to get upset about the game's faults when I'm too busy laughing at watching my friend get wombo combo-ed by multiple items back-to-back, causing him to miss a scripted jump and die. And Battle Mode? Oh man: get four friends, boot up Block Fort, and the war is on.
Mario Kart 64 gets a big bump for its multiplayer, as playing it alone will induce feelings of unalive. The aesthetic and theming of the game based on advertisements and sponsors a la professional racing is also neat. It's far from perfect, but if you want tight controls, just play 8 Deluxe. If you choose violence, play Mario Kart 64.