The second game in the Mario Kart series was released on the Nintendo 64, while the first one was on the SNES. As I’m sure you can imagine, this game is quite a lot better than the previous one in a technological sense, but does that necessarily mean it is better on the whole?

The selection of characters is still eight, except this time you can be: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Wario, Bowser and Donkey Kong. This does introduce Wario and the Donkey Kong Country version of Donkey Kong to the series for the first time, but at the cost of losing Koopa Troopa and Donkey Kong Jr. who were in the last one. I think this roster is just about a step up from that of the first game.

What I find quite disappointing about Mario Kart 64, however, is its selection of tracks. While you would expect this to have more race courses than the first game, there are actually only sixteen, while the last game had twenty. On the upside, every track is very unique and no two look alike, but I feel there’s a certain something lacking about them. While I had a lot of fun with Toad’s Turnpike (which had you racing in a fairly realistic place, alongside regular vehicles), Kalamari Desert (which is a big desert with a train driving through it) and a few others, I found that generally, the courses in this game felt quite big and empty. One upside is that now they are all fully 3D levels, while in the last game they were all flat, but that does leave me wondering even more so why they should be of a slightly lower standard.

A big improvement is the addition of a multiplayer mode that supports up the four players. Once you’ve won all the cups in a Mario Kart game, the thing that will keep you coming back is the chance to race against friends. Even if I do think that the levels are a little unexciting this time, I still get a lot of fun out of it when I’m playing with people I know. Not only can you race on any of the tracks, but, again, there’s also a battle mode. I’m not an enormous fan of battle mode, but the battling arenas are really good, there’s one which is a ring with lava in the centre, and one which is on the roof of a skyscraper which especially stuck with me, though all of them are fun. Weirdly, you lose all background music if you play with more than one other person, which is a shame because it has a nice soundtrack.

One aspect of the single player mode has seen quite an upgrade as well: the CPU players are no longer horrible cheaters. They don’t have infinite items (they have the exact same access to item boxes as you do), they can’t just jump over any items that will harm them, and they don’t work together against you. This brings the difficulty down to a much more comfortable level. New items are available as well: it’s now possible to get multiple shells or bananas at once, you can leave a fake item box as a trap, and there’s now a Spiny Shell which heads straight for the player in first place, hitting anyone along the way. The Spiny Shell has caused controversy amongst fans but, here at least, I don’t find it too intrusive. As before you can do time trails as well, but annoyingly it impossible to save your records on the Wii version.

I think this might be a case of taking one step forward, but two steps back. It’s all in good fun, but the original is very slightly better. Rating: 7.5/10

Buy it here.

I’m sure that everybody’s familiar with the Mario Kart series in one way or another, and this is the game that started it all. In its first instalment, the series isn’t quite what it would later become, but this is still a good game.

Presumably due to the limitations of the time, there is only a selection of eight characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Koopa, Bowser and Donkey Kong Jr. The small number of characters doesn’t really bother me very much though, and I’m actually quite pleased that you can be Donkey Kong Jr. (who at the time of writing has never returned to the series.) There are, however, twenty different race courses which is quite a nice number. While one or two of the tracks may have similar aesthetics, they all have layouts that make them different enough for me to enjoy them as unique experiences.

The single player mode gives you the option of two different classes, 50cc and 100cc, (and a time trail mode) with one being easier than the other and each having a handful of cups to win. I had a lot of fun racing through 50cc mode with the only potential downside being that it was perhaps too easy. There were several times when I lapped the racer who was in last place. Then I started doing the cups at 100cc. All of a sudden, things seemed to be quite challenging. I certainly wasn’t lapping anybody any more. But it was all in good fun. Once that’s done (and I hope this won’t be considered a spoiler) you unlock 150cc mode which, for me, was an absolutely insane level of difficulty.

The CPU racers in this game work in a way which, on 150cc mode, can be extremely frustrating. You see, each racer isn’t out to win; each racer is out to ensure that they will come in their designated position and that you will come last. So it’s very much a case of you against them. They also don’t seem to be slowed by going off-road, whereas you are slowed very significantly.

But that’s not all. Most significantly they have an unlimited supply of items. In the game, you go over item boxes and then get something which will help you in that race (a mushroom to go faster, a shell to throw at other racers) but the CPUs don’t get anything from item boxes because they all have an infinite number of one kind of item which matches their character (often ones you cannot use yourself). For example, Donkey Kong Jr. has unlimited bananas which he’ll drop to make you skid out of control if you’re behind, or throw ahead of you, if you’re in front of him.

Does that seem a fair trade for your scattered access to every item? Well, I’m afraid it isn’t. Mario and Luigi have unlimited stars, and that means they have unlimited invincibility and merely touching them will make you skid out. Oh, and it makes them go faster too. You’d think that the annoying thing would be the fact that you’d then be unable to slow them down with your own items, wouldn’t you? Well, every CPU character can just jump really high in the air to avoid any items anyway, so, you’ll probably miss them half the time! You lack this magic jump power, by the way.

But I don’t want to give this game a bad review. It is still a good game. There’s also a multiplayer mode which will probably be the main feature for anybody who has somebody to play with. Playing with a friend is very fun and it suffers from none of the downsides that the single player mode occasionally does. There’s also a ‘Battle Mode’ where two players can fight against one another in their karts, using the items. It’s sad that only two people can play together, but it’s good fun even with two.

This is a game that’s definitely worth a try, but its later difficulty can’t be understated. Rating: 8.5/10

Buy it here.