Mario Kart 64

The readers post their own reviews.
Blueguy93

Mario Kart 64

Postby Blueguy93 » June 5th, 2011, 6:08 pm

Mario Kart 64                                                                 Grade: B+


Back in the day, I remember my babysitters giving me two more controllers to my N64 (with a total of four) and all of their N64 games! One of them was Mario Kart 64. It was all great fun back in the day, and revisiting it today, I can say it's aged very well.

Mario Kart 64 gives you sixteen tracks to race over. While these tracks aren't spectacular, they certainly are imaginative, with tracks such as going over a dark bridge, on the highway, and even going over dirt hills! Hitting enemies with shells and drifting is fun and awesome to use, and there are some cool shortcuts such as jumping over the Rainbow Road and going through a waterfall! The music is great too.

The single player mode is good enough, but even better is the multiplayer mode. Racing against three friends is great fun, and the battle mode is also a plus. It gives you a few tracks to knock your opponents balloons off of.

However, Mario Kart 64 is not a flawless game. First, the controls for turning are slippery, and you'll spinning and crashing into walls quite a few times. Firing Shells behind you requires you to push a few buttons to do so, which sucks. Yoshi's Valley's interface is screwed up, so you don't know who won until the very end. Finally, and it's my biggest issue with the game; The cheating AI! I take a shortcut through the waterfall, only to have the AI right behind my back in no time! 

With that said, Mario Kart 64 is a terrific racer that will impress the single player gamers a lot and the multiplayer gamers a lot more. I prefer Diddy Kong Racing to this, but this is still a game I like to pull out and play a lot.

a1
Posts: 3032
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Mario Kart 64

Postby a1 » June 6th, 2011, 5:51 pm

[QUOTE=Blueguy93]Firing Shells behind you requires you to push a few buttons to do so, which sucks. 
[/QUOTE]

You just hold back and press Z. Seems pretty intuitive to me.

Blueguy93

Mario Kart 64

Postby Blueguy93 » June 6th, 2011, 9:18 pm

[QUOTE=a][QUOTE=Blueguy93]Firing Shells behind you requires you to push a few buttons to do so, which sucks.  [/QUOTE] You just hold back and press Z. Seems pretty intuitive to me. [/QUOTE]

Not in this game.

bigllama

Mario Kart 64

Postby bigllama » June 6th, 2011, 11:20 pm

Actually yeah, you just push back on the joystick and press Z to fire stuff backwards.  If you want to throw bananas forward, you press Z and push up on the joystick.

a1
Posts: 3032
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Mario Kart 64

Postby a1 » June 7th, 2011, 12:59 am

Yeah I'm 100% sure I'm right, at least in the American version. I've played a lot of Mario Kart 64. 

Herschie
Posts: 1183
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:44 pm

Re: Mario Kart 64

Postby Herschie » November 11th, 2015, 8:27 pm

Loved this game. In many ways it's better than Mariokart 8. You see, more contemporary Mario Karts tend to be a little over the top and try to do too much. Less is more, and MK64 was perfect in understanding this. It was just pure Mariokart fun.

SigSauerLover
Posts: 167
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 5:51 pm

Re: Mario Kart 64

Postby SigSauerLover » November 18th, 2015, 4:29 pm

After being spoiled by later Kart games, I'm sorry, but this game just doesn't feel the same. Sure, it still looks nice, and is smooth, but hot damn, are the controls slippery!

User avatar
Rev
Posts: 1487
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:31 pm

Re: Mario Kart 64

Postby Rev » November 19th, 2015, 12:49 am

I've never understood the hype of MK64. The game is my least favorite MK title and that wasn't even back when it was released. I love almost all the titles (Super Circuit and 7 also being low on my list) but the rubber band AI is probably the thing I dislike the most. All MK titles have this to a degree but this title goes too far. It is impossible to build a lead on your opponents at all, while making catching up easier as well.

User avatar
MoarRipter
Posts: 192
Joined: July 12th, 2015, 2:38 pm

Re: Mario Kart 64

Postby MoarRipter » November 20th, 2015, 10:47 am

For me the best part of MK 64 back in the day was Battle Mode, the Big Donut and Block Fort were pretty fun with couch co-op. Racing could be too, it was all about having other real players to race against. The rubber band AI however, yes, is the worst part of the game, and racing against the AI is the game's low point. Couch co-op is where it's at and that's why people look back on that game so fondly, it was so fun!

It's one of my least favorite Mario Kart games mainly because of the N64 controller more than anything. The VC version on the Wii with the Gamecube controller (or Classic Controller Pro) is much more fun in my opinion and makes the game better.

User avatar
Retrology
Posts: 438
Joined: July 17th, 2015, 2:45 am

Re: Mario Kart 64

Postby Retrology » April 12th, 2016, 1:10 pm

I want to reflect on my previous review of this game (I was once known as Blueguy). I overlooked some of the game's flaws, which I'll list below:

Control: The controls haven't aged well at all. I keep struggling to stay on the track, and the biggest offenders would be Royal Raceway and Bowser's Castle (surprisingly, Banshee Boardwalk hasn't given me that much trouble). Drifting is not nearly as fun as it is in later Mario Kart games.

Track Design: This IMO really varies in terms of consistency. Royal Raceway is frustrating as I've spent my time struggling to stay on the track with all the turns, even when I was drifting. I enjoy Toad's Turnpike, Choco Mountain, Sherbert Land, Wario Stadium, and DK's Jungle Parkway, but Rainbow Road and Moo Moo Farm are boring, and even some of the more interesting tracks (Koopa Troopa Beach) don't control as well and aren't as well designed as they would be when they were included in later editions.

Character Sprites: This was a novel concept for its time, but not only do the characters look severely pixelated, the pre-rendered look makes it difficult to judge depth as you're approaching obstacles, leading to cheap hits or landing in abysses.

Item Set: Red shells are frustrating to use, as most of the time mine would hit a wall. The 5-banana peel item is a cool concept that never caught on in later MK games, but why do you pause sometimes when you hit one? I realize you can try to avoid overdrifting here, but it seems pointless.

Rubberband AI: No explanation needed.

Nevertheless, the multiplayer aspect has held up, with the races and battle mode being far superior to the single player. As it stands right now, I'd give it a C+ or B- today. It's still a quality racer, but I never thought it was great, despite the amount of nostalgia I had growing up with it. It's the weakest of the MK games I've played, and (again, I know) Diddy Kong Racing has aged far better, with better controls, track design, graphics, item set, no rubberband AI, and better single player (I can say MK64 has better multiplayer though).


Return to “Reader Reviews”