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This thread has been linked to the game 'Mario Kart Double Dash'.
finally picked this game up a few days ago, having played it briefly at a party i was most impressed!!
bright, vibrant, colourful, great music...
EASILY one of the best multiplayer/party games around at the moment. top notch fun. The battle modes are also really good fun (that pipes level in balloon mode is dynamite!!).
granted, i feel the omission of the little hop on the shoulder buttons is not the best idea, and sometimes items can "hide" on the brow of hills in the road, giving you no chance to avoid them, but other than that it's a great little pick-up-and-play game, easy to control and get into.
but then... THEN... we discover 1-player mode.
oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
the super-start is a thorough waste of time as a 1-player tactic because if you manage it, then so do all the cpu opponents, who then just barge into/infront of you at the first corner (causing you do either spin out or stop dead, while they seem to lose very little momentum), it's actually better to do a regular start and then pass them all in turn.
The difficulty level is oddly done as well. there's not a HUGE difference in the actual speed of the 3 speed settings, the main difference is that the higher the CC, the more items you'll be inexplicably smashed with on the last lap of your race, apparantly no matter how far ahead you are.
I KNOW it's cliche to claim "this game cheats!" (second only to "this controller's knackered" :) ) and i KNOW games are supposed to be a challenge, but where this game becomes less of an enjoyable experience and more than a little frustrating is the outrageous cpu controlled elements. the scenery cars on the road levels that randomly (and sharply) change course JUST to blow you up as you near the finish line, the fact that the smallest slip results in your place dropping rapidly (and don't count on the pick-up items to help you in this instance, miraculously you start to get nothing but banana skins when all you need is a speed-up mushroom), the cpu karts that will crash and then immediately be back up to full speed, whereas if the PLAYER controls the kart, it'll take a good few seconds to get going again. Ok, so the other karts hit the shells/skins/fake/boxes as well, but more often than not it won't make any difference to them, on the higher levels you really do need to get into first straight away not hit ANYTHING.. "but that's the point" i hear you cry and yes, yes it is... but the chances of you hitting NOTHING is next to none as if you venture slightly away from the 2nd place drone, you'll be bombarded with enemy items until you're battered back in to 5th place, whereby you have only a slim chance of regaining 1st place.
It's a rare game that will make you accept resonsibility for a death/mistake in a game, Ikaruga managed it (there was ALWAYS at least one way through the bullets), NHL Hitz manages it (i've been playing it for months and haven't found it to do anything out of the reach of the human players once) but Mario Kart... doesn't :(
the original SNES version provided a challenge on the later levels, but you never felt as though you'd been straight up cheated out of a win and if you DID fail to make the top 4, it had this GREAT little idea called a "retry".. they're like "lives" in other games, whereby if you do something badly you get to try it again... or "retry" if you will.
quite why this idea didn't make it will remain a mystery for all time, as in MK:DD, should you be knocked into 5th or higher; that's it. no retry, no 2nd chance, just a pitiful amount of points, so low that you've NO chance of getting the gold cup.
if you can play this game multiplayer then you'll REALLY love it because, as i said, that aspect of the game is an absolute joy, but unless you have an infinite amount of patience (or you're somewhat of a masochist) then the 1-player mode will be played through once to unlock all the secret items, then rarely looked at again, save for the odd venture into a 50cc game where the balance is just about right to make it enjoyable.
overall a brilliant, brilliant game, spoiled by an obviously biased 1-player mode. but as long as you have 1 friend then this game belongs in your collection!!!!
bright, vibrant, colourful, great music...
EASILY one of the best multiplayer/party games around at the moment. top notch fun. The battle modes are also really good fun (that pipes level in balloon mode is dynamite!!).
granted, i feel the omission of the little hop on the shoulder buttons is not the best idea, and sometimes items can "hide" on the brow of hills in the road, giving you no chance to avoid them, but other than that it's a great little pick-up-and-play game, easy to control and get into.
but then... THEN... we discover 1-player mode.
oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
the super-start is a thorough waste of time as a 1-player tactic because if you manage it, then so do all the cpu opponents, who then just barge into/infront of you at the first corner (causing you do either spin out or stop dead, while they seem to lose very little momentum), it's actually better to do a regular start and then pass them all in turn.
The difficulty level is oddly done as well. there's not a HUGE difference in the actual speed of the 3 speed settings, the main difference is that the higher the CC, the more items you'll be inexplicably smashed with on the last lap of your race, apparantly no matter how far ahead you are.
I KNOW it's cliche to claim "this game cheats!" (second only to "this controller's knackered" :) ) and i KNOW games are supposed to be a challenge, but where this game becomes less of an enjoyable experience and more than a little frustrating is the outrageous cpu controlled elements. the scenery cars on the road levels that randomly (and sharply) change course JUST to blow you up as you near the finish line, the fact that the smallest slip results in your place dropping rapidly (and don't count on the pick-up items to help you in this instance, miraculously you start to get nothing but banana skins when all you need is a speed-up mushroom), the cpu karts that will crash and then immediately be back up to full speed, whereas if the PLAYER controls the kart, it'll take a good few seconds to get going again. Ok, so the other karts hit the shells/skins/fake/boxes as well, but more often than not it won't make any difference to them, on the higher levels you really do need to get into first straight away not hit ANYTHING.. "but that's the point" i hear you cry and yes, yes it is... but the chances of you hitting NOTHING is next to none as if you venture slightly away from the 2nd place drone, you'll be bombarded with enemy items until you're battered back in to 5th place, whereby you have only a slim chance of regaining 1st place.
It's a rare game that will make you accept resonsibility for a death/mistake in a game, Ikaruga managed it (there was ALWAYS at least one way through the bullets), NHL Hitz manages it (i've been playing it for months and haven't found it to do anything out of the reach of the human players once) but Mario Kart... doesn't :(
the original SNES version provided a challenge on the later levels, but you never felt as though you'd been straight up cheated out of a win and if you DID fail to make the top 4, it had this GREAT little idea called a "retry".. they're like "lives" in other games, whereby if you do something badly you get to try it again... or "retry" if you will.
quite why this idea didn't make it will remain a mystery for all time, as in MK:DD, should you be knocked into 5th or higher; that's it. no retry, no 2nd chance, just a pitiful amount of points, so low that you've NO chance of getting the gold cup.
if you can play this game multiplayer then you'll REALLY love it because, as i said, that aspect of the game is an absolute joy, but unless you have an infinite amount of patience (or you're somewhat of a masochist) then the 1-player mode will be played through once to unlock all the secret items, then rarely looked at again, save for the odd venture into a 50cc game where the balance is just about right to make it enjoyable.
overall a brilliant, brilliant game, spoiled by an obviously biased 1-player mode. but as long as you have 1 friend then this game belongs in your collection!!!!
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Rickoss wrote:
> Ermmm... why not post this on ukreviews.com?
i did.
was just curious if anyone else had similar experiences with it so thought i'd post it in the Nintendo forum.
> Ermmm... why not post this on ukreviews.com?
i did.
was just curious if anyone else had similar experiences with it so thought i'd post it in the Nintendo forum.
"Word count"
Ermmm... why not post this on ukreviews.com?
finally picked this game up a few days ago, having played it briefly at a party i was most impressed!!
bright, vibrant, colourful, great music...
EASILY one of the best multiplayer/party games around at the moment. top notch fun. The battle modes are also really good fun (that pipes level in balloon mode is dynamite!!).
granted, i feel the omission of the little hop on the shoulder buttons is not the best idea, and sometimes items can "hide" on the brow of hills in the road, giving you no chance to avoid them, but other than that it's a great little pick-up-and-play game, easy to control and get into.
but then... THEN... we discover 1-player mode.
oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
the super-start is a thorough waste of time as a 1-player tactic because if you manage it, then so do all the cpu opponents, who then just barge into/infront of you at the first corner (causing you do either spin out or stop dead, while they seem to lose very little momentum), it's actually better to do a regular start and then pass them all in turn.
The difficulty level is oddly done as well. there's not a HUGE difference in the actual speed of the 3 speed settings, the main difference is that the higher the CC, the more items you'll be inexplicably smashed with on the last lap of your race, apparantly no matter how far ahead you are.
I KNOW it's cliche to claim "this game cheats!" (second only to "this controller's knackered" :) ) and i KNOW games are supposed to be a challenge, but where this game becomes less of an enjoyable experience and more than a little frustrating is the outrageous cpu controlled elements. the scenery cars on the road levels that randomly (and sharply) change course JUST to blow you up as you near the finish line, the fact that the smallest slip results in your place dropping rapidly (and don't count on the pick-up items to help you in this instance, miraculously you start to get nothing but banana skins when all you need is a speed-up mushroom), the cpu karts that will crash and then immediately be back up to full speed, whereas if the PLAYER controls the kart, it'll take a good few seconds to get going again. Ok, so the other karts hit the shells/skins/fake/boxes as well, but more often than not it won't make any difference to them, on the higher levels you really do need to get into first straight away not hit ANYTHING.. "but that's the point" i hear you cry and yes, yes it is... but the chances of you hitting NOTHING is next to none as if you venture slightly away from the 2nd place drone, you'll be bombarded with enemy items until you're battered back in to 5th place, whereby you have only a slim chance of regaining 1st place.
It's a rare game that will make you accept resonsibility for a death/mistake in a game, Ikaruga managed it (there was ALWAYS at least one way through the bullets), NHL Hitz manages it (i've been playing it for months and haven't found it to do anything out of the reach of the human players once) but Mario Kart... doesn't :(
the original SNES version provided a challenge on the later levels, but you never felt as though you'd been straight up cheated out of a win and if you DID fail to make the top 4, it had this GREAT little idea called a "retry".. they're like "lives" in other games, whereby if you do something badly you get to try it again... or "retry" if you will.
quite why this idea didn't make it will remain a mystery for all time, as in MK:DD, should you be knocked into 5th or higher; that's it. no retry, no 2nd chance, just a pitiful amount of points, so low that you've NO chance of getting the gold cup.
if you can play this game multiplayer then you'll REALLY love it because, as i said, that aspect of the game is an absolute joy, but unless you have an infinite amount of patience (or you're somewhat of a masochist) then the 1-player mode will be played through once to unlock all the secret items, then rarely looked at again, save for the odd venture into a 50cc game where the balance is just about right to make it enjoyable.
overall a brilliant, brilliant game, spoiled by an obviously biased 1-player mode. but as long as you have 1 friend then this game belongs in your collection!!!!
bright, vibrant, colourful, great music...
EASILY one of the best multiplayer/party games around at the moment. top notch fun. The battle modes are also really good fun (that pipes level in balloon mode is dynamite!!).
granted, i feel the omission of the little hop on the shoulder buttons is not the best idea, and sometimes items can "hide" on the brow of hills in the road, giving you no chance to avoid them, but other than that it's a great little pick-up-and-play game, easy to control and get into.
but then... THEN... we discover 1-player mode.
oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
the super-start is a thorough waste of time as a 1-player tactic because if you manage it, then so do all the cpu opponents, who then just barge into/infront of you at the first corner (causing you do either spin out or stop dead, while they seem to lose very little momentum), it's actually better to do a regular start and then pass them all in turn.
The difficulty level is oddly done as well. there's not a HUGE difference in the actual speed of the 3 speed settings, the main difference is that the higher the CC, the more items you'll be inexplicably smashed with on the last lap of your race, apparantly no matter how far ahead you are.
I KNOW it's cliche to claim "this game cheats!" (second only to "this controller's knackered" :) ) and i KNOW games are supposed to be a challenge, but where this game becomes less of an enjoyable experience and more than a little frustrating is the outrageous cpu controlled elements. the scenery cars on the road levels that randomly (and sharply) change course JUST to blow you up as you near the finish line, the fact that the smallest slip results in your place dropping rapidly (and don't count on the pick-up items to help you in this instance, miraculously you start to get nothing but banana skins when all you need is a speed-up mushroom), the cpu karts that will crash and then immediately be back up to full speed, whereas if the PLAYER controls the kart, it'll take a good few seconds to get going again. Ok, so the other karts hit the shells/skins/fake/boxes as well, but more often than not it won't make any difference to them, on the higher levels you really do need to get into first straight away not hit ANYTHING.. "but that's the point" i hear you cry and yes, yes it is... but the chances of you hitting NOTHING is next to none as if you venture slightly away from the 2nd place drone, you'll be bombarded with enemy items until you're battered back in to 5th place, whereby you have only a slim chance of regaining 1st place.
It's a rare game that will make you accept resonsibility for a death/mistake in a game, Ikaruga managed it (there was ALWAYS at least one way through the bullets), NHL Hitz manages it (i've been playing it for months and haven't found it to do anything out of the reach of the human players once) but Mario Kart... doesn't :(
the original SNES version provided a challenge on the later levels, but you never felt as though you'd been straight up cheated out of a win and if you DID fail to make the top 4, it had this GREAT little idea called a "retry".. they're like "lives" in other games, whereby if you do something badly you get to try it again... or "retry" if you will.
quite why this idea didn't make it will remain a mystery for all time, as in MK:DD, should you be knocked into 5th or higher; that's it. no retry, no 2nd chance, just a pitiful amount of points, so low that you've NO chance of getting the gold cup.
if you can play this game multiplayer then you'll REALLY love it because, as i said, that aspect of the game is an absolute joy, but unless you have an infinite amount of patience (or you're somewhat of a masochist) then the 1-player mode will be played through once to unlock all the secret items, then rarely looked at again, save for the odd venture into a 50cc game where the balance is just about right to make it enjoyable.
overall a brilliant, brilliant game, spoiled by an obviously biased 1-player mode. but as long as you have 1 friend then this game belongs in your collection!!!!
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