Video Games : Mario Kart DS

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from: Nintendo

List Price: $34.99

Amazon.com's Price: $33.99

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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 60 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Nintendo
EAN: 0045496735906
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
Format: Nintendo
Label: Nintendo
Manufacturer: Nintendo
Model: 73590
Platform: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: November 14, 2005
Sales Rank: 52
Studio: Nintendo

Features:

Race and battle with up to 4 karts at once -- or enjoy 8-player multiplayer action through your Wi-Fi Connection
Tour courses from classic Mario Kart games -- as well as brand-new tracks and arenas
All the crazy items and frantic speed players have come to expect

Accessories:

Related Items:

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Mario Kart DS lets you race and battle your friends all over the world. Get on the Internet via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, racing up to race 8 friends wirelessly with only a single Game Card!

Amazon.com Product Description:
The ultimate Mario Kart race is on…and online via your Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection in Mario Kart DS. Drawing on more than 30 courses and battle arenas from every game in the Mario Kart series - not to mention tons of new ones, Mario Kart DS allows you to play as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Wario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Toad, Bowser and Shy Guy as you put the pedal to the go-kart metal, grab coins to max out your speed and blast rivals with the ever-popular arsenal of red, green and spiked Koopa shells in a race to finally put to rest the question of who is the true king of the Mushroom Kingdom racing circuit.

Race the Mushroom circuit

Mario looking tough in his kart in 'Mario Kart DS'
Mario is a veteran of the circuit.
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Character selection screen in 'Mario Kart DS'
Choose your favorite character.
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Princess Peach on here kart in 'Mario Kart DS'
Peach is a master drifter.
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Selecting your kart in 'Mario Kart DS'
Select the Kart you want.
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Bowser with his kart in in 'Mario Kart DS'
Bowser is the bruiser of the track.
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Racing stats in 'Mario Kart DS'
Watch your position in the pack.
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Progressing Through the Game
Place first in Grand Prix circuits or clear skill-based missions to open up increasingly difficult and thrilling circuits. Of course, players can have multiplayer races on any open courses or battle in arenas.

Game Modes: At Least Five Ways to Play
Whether you prefer to race by yourself or to mix it up with friends, Mario Kart DS is a game with something for everyone. Features five different game modes, these include a 'VS' and 'Battle' mode that are available in multiplayer for up to eight players via local wireless connection while all modes are available singleplayer. See a complete list and description of the play modes below:

Grand Prix Mode: In Grand Prix Mode, the driver who earns the most points at the end of a four-course cup is the victor. Mario Kart DS features eight different cups, with each cup featuring four different tracks.
Time Trial Mode: Your objective in Time Trial Mode is to get the fastest time that you can on a single track. . You can save your best runs as ghost data and share them with a friend.
VS Mode: A competitive mode that can be either singleplayer. or multiplayer. In the singleplayer. version you'll race against computer-controlled karts, while in multiplayer you'll race against human opponents who play using their own Nintendo DS systems.
Battle Modes

Balloon Battle Mode: Your goal is to pop your opponent's balloons by attacking/stealing them by colliding into an opponent via a mushroom boost, before your own balloons are popped.
Shine Runners: In this mode the driver who collects the most Shine Sprites is the winner.

Mission Mode: In this mode you are given sets of specific missions that you must clear in order to move on to the next set of missions. What could wait at the end?

Special Powers, Weapons, Moves & Features
Turbo power-drifting and item tossing is the order of the day, whether players are racing around an obstacle-filled track or battling in an arena. Use familiar items taken from every game in the series like Green Shells, homing Red Shells, Bananas, Bombs, Lightning and the destructive Spiny Shell, not to mention new ones like the Blooper. The touch screen features a map that shows items being fired at players, who can even tap it with their fingers mid-race to zoom in or out.

Wireless Communication: Even More Ways to Play:
Mario Kart DS features three different forms of wireless game play: two kinds of local wireless game play and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection online game play. Mario Kart DS offers two different options for LAN Wireless game play: DS Download Play, in which only one player has Mario Kart DS and all players have Nintendo DS systems, and Multi-Card Play, in which all players have Mario Kart DS and Nintendo DS systems.

DS Download Play
As with all DS Download multiplayer games, the DS Download Play in Mario Kart DS requires that only one player has a copy of the game. Unlike past DS games, however, DS Download Play in Mario Kart DS allows multiple players who have the game card to play with multiple players who do not have the game card. DS Download Play offers the following features:

2-8 player simultaneous wireless game play.
A choice of multiplayer racing, Balloon Battle, or Shine Runner modes.
Players who own Mario Kart DS can choose their own characters and use personalized icons, while players who do not own Mario Kart DS must play as Shy Guy and cannot use personalized player icons.
Track selection is limited to eight tracks for racing and three arenas for Balloon Battle and Shine Runner modes.
DS Download Play is limited to the 100 cc engine class

Multi-Card Play
Multi-Card Play requires all players to have their own copies of Mario Kart DS, giving players more options, modes and tracks to choose from. Multi-Card Play offers the following features:

2-8 player simultaneous wireless game play.
Your choice of multiplayer racing, Balloon Battle, or Shine Runner modes.
Players can choose from different engine classes.
No limits on character choice.
No limits on track choice.
Player's win/loss ratio is saved and tracked.
Players who race locally are automatically added to each other's friend roster and then can race via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Players can trade ghost data wirelessly, allowing them to race against each others' best times.

Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection:
Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is a free online game-play service provided by Nintendo to Nintendo DS owners. It offers seamless access to online game play and an environment that is welcoming to gamers of all skill levels. Features include: Whether it's the updated graphics that retain the side-scrolling feel of classic games in the Sonic franchise, an expansive world to race through and explore or the multiple and new ways to play, Sonic Unleashed offers something for players of any age or level of ability.

2-4 players racing simultaneously.
Choice of playing with:

Friends only (players registered as Friends)
Rivals (players with similar skills)
Recent opponents
Regional racers (players in their country)
World racers (players anywhere in the world)

No limit on course choice, but each player votes for a course and the course with the most votes wins (in case of a tie, the course is chosen randomly)
No limit on character choice
Players can create and use personalized player icons

Connecting to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection will be quick, easy and seamless. Players can go to an official Nintendo hotspot and immediately go online and start playing. To use their home Wi-Fi routers, players first must configure the DS to connect to their routers by entering the router's network ID and optional security key or install the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector on their PC and configure the DS to enable it to share the PC's broadband connection. After that, players can go online anytime without further configuration. Friends are registered to the friends roster either by exchanging and entering Friend Registration Keys or by playing local Multi-Card Multiplayer mode together.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Let's Play!
Ah, the fun of racing. Of course, this time I'm talking about Mario Kart DS, probably my favourite Nintendo DS game. Sadly. I've only really played one other version and that was the one for the Nintendo 64. Luckily, I loved it so much that I only ever played another game or two on that system. Period. Also, luckily for me, the version on the DS has some of the tracks I grew to love. If you also fell in love with previous versions, you'll find tracks from the SNES version and the GBA version, too.

The concept is simple, you play as Mario or one of the franchise characters and you race others. You hit item boxes to get items to help you on your way and make the game a little more exciting. Besides racing, you can do time trials, battle or missions (which seem to be common with Nintendo DS games).

To to the spirit of Mario Kart (one of the things I love most about this game), which is being pitted against your friends, you can play with others via 2 methods. The first method is called multiplayer and is with a friend (or 7!) in within range of your system. You can play with those who have the game (Normal) or those who do not (simple). Friends without the game can download a more limited version to their Nintendo DS for the time being. Of course, with the WiFI capabilities of the DS, you can also play with anyone across the globe as long as you have access to a compatible wireless network.

Besides that aspect, how is gameplay? I find it to be pretty fun even when it's just single player.

Like previous versions, you can play Grand Prix which is divided into 4 Cups made up of 4 tracks to compete for bronze, silver or gold place. In this game, you can also get a rating of letters or stars. Letters A - D work like grades in school and stars - from 1 - 3 - are even better ratings above A. The Grands Prix are divided into classes based on speed (engine size), also like previous versions: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. In this version, you can also play the 150cc Mirror version which is a flipped (not backward) version of the tracks.

The game comes with several Grand Prix cups locked. By playing each of the Cups before it and earning the gold, you unlock the cups. Each cup can be unlocked in each of the engine classes.

The Grand Prix is also divided into two classes - Nitro and Retro. Nitro contains new tracks and Retro contains tracks from previous games.

If you're not interested in playing a whole cup or want to play more than one, you can play Versus. This gameplay consists of track after track according to settings you choose which include engine class, kart difficulty, course order, rules (or lack there-of) and teams. You can play free for as long as you want and quit at any time. If you want to play to a certain score or a certain number of races, you set that in the rules.

To practice the runs, play time trial. Time trials have a new feature where you can send or relieve a "ghost," that is a slightly transparent recording of an already completed time trial. You can see how you're doing against your previous trials or those of a friend.

Like previous versions, you can play Battles. Mario Kart DS includes Balloon Battles although, there is a slight difference from older versions. Instead of starting with 3 balloons, you start with 5, only 1 of which is blown up. Using the microphone, you blow up the others up to 3 at a time. Once all your active balloons are popped by items and damage, you lose, even if you have balloons in reserve so you must always blow them up.

There's also a new version of battle, Shine Runners. In these, you collect little stars called Shines. Every time you are damaged or hit with an item, you lose a shine. Periodically, those players with the fewest sines are eliminated until only the player with the most Shines still remains.

The newest addition is that of the missions. With 7 different levels containing 8 missions plus a boss stage, you have to complete different tasks such as driving through gates, collecting coins, collecting and using items on others or doing turbo boosts to earn a ranking of stars or letters (the same as cup rankings). Each stage earns a ranking and each level earn and overall ranking.

One of the features I like about this game is the ability to unlock things. Completing tasks or racing well offers rewards of extra characters or karts. Overall, there are 12 characters including classics like Luigi, Yoshi and Princess peach as well as let known faces like Princess Daisy, Dry Bones and ROB 64. There's also a total of 36 karts to allow you more customization than previous versions.

If you'd like to customize it even more, there are options to edit your nickname and emblem which appear next to your character on on your kart, respectively.

Of course, being on a dual screen offers some new incentives as well. It allows for information to be displayed on its own screen and the overall playing image to be larger and more detailed. The Nintendo DS has pretty good graphics despite its small size so this is definitely a plus.

During races and battles, the top screen shows up close racing view while the lower one shows a map of the track and stats of the other racers. In settings modes, the actual settings show up on the touch screen where you can select them with additional information or images on the upper screen.

The one qualm I have about how Mario Kart DS is set up is that it does not fully take advantage of the innovative touch screen. Besides the title and selection screen, the touch screen is not even a factor in the game. Even during those times, the keys can be used as well.

Overall, I really enjoy this game. I love to play with my friends but it's just as fun to play by myself. The Grand Prix provides exciting new runs as well as ones I love from older games. Even after unlocking all the different tracks and earning gold in all the cups, I can still keep myself busy by trying to improve my ranking for tracks, cups and missions.

The option to play with friends in my living room or across the world also adds variety to the game and although I've unlocked almost everything n the game, I still play it frequently. This is definitely a game whose bright colours and fun sounds will attract children of all ages. At the end of the Grands Prix, the first, second and third place winners drive up to a platform where they are crowned; I would definitely crown this game!

Rating:

- just regular
A lot of change since n64...not in a good way...impossible to overlap like on here,computer unrealisticly makes a comeback,too much cheating to like, Double Dash rules though!!

Rating:

- Classic.
It's Mario Kart on the DS, plain and simple. I kinda wish there were more tracks, but multiplayer and battle mode more than make up for it. If you love Mario Kart you will love this game.

Rating:

- Perfect starter game
This has, by far, been the best game we purchased for our 6 year old son. It's graphics are large enough not to frustrate him, and the games are easy to understand. Great game for beginners, especially! Worth every penny.

Rating:

- Super fun for all ages!
I had played the original version of this game as a kid so when I bought my DS I decided to buy the DS version of MarioKart to play when I got fidgety. It's great to play though it seems more challenging than the original. The missions ad an extra element of challenge which I have yet to master but it doesn't stop me trying.
I saw a kid playing the same game one day and he had gone through all the missions so it really goes to show that this is a game for anyone.


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