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Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart 64 is a racing video game for the Nintendo 64 game system for up to four players. It is the sequel to Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Players take control of characters from the Super Mario Bros. video game series and race around a variety of tracks while using several weapons including items that make the racers speed increase, turtle-shell projectiles and slipper banana peels. Music for the game was was composed by Koji Kondo, who composed the score to many Nintendo projects.

Notable differences between Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario Kart

• The graphics have been significantly upgraded.
• Two characters, Koopa Troopa and Donkey Kong Junior, have been replaced with Wario and Donkey Kong.
• The Jump Feather and coins have been removed.
• Several weapons were added including: a banana bunch, triple mushroom, golden mushroom, triple green shells, triple red shells, fake item bomb, spiked blue shell.
• In the opinion of some players, the difficulty is slightly greater.

Modes of Gameplay

Mario Grand Prix (GP)

In the one or two player mode, players race in a group of eight (one or two human players and six or seven computer players) around a series of four courses per cup. A player selects one of the four cups at the beginning of the game as well as a difficulty.

Time Trials

Available in one player mode only. A player may play any course in any cup. There is no option to select a difficulty level. The computer records the five best course completion times at every track as well as the best single-lap time. Players can compete against these times. If a player plays a course two or more times in a row there will be a ghost of that player running the course that displays the best run they've had of that course in the current sitting. These ghosts can be saved on a controller pak, a form of digital media for the Nintendo 64, to be recalled in another time trial session. A player is given a triple mushroom for use in each time trial.

Versus Mode

In this game for two, three or four players, players can race head-to-head against their friends without computer players. Players need not play an entire cup, but select individual courses to play. Players also select the difficulty level.

Battle Mode

In this game for two, three or four players, players compete in one of four arenas filled with items. Players have three balloons attached to their go-carts and lose them when they are spun-out by either being hit by a player in a higher weight class or spun out with an item. In three and four player modes, players that have lost all of their balloons come back once as a bomb that can move around to crash with another player and thus remove one balloon. The winner is the last one with balloons left.

Battle Areans

• Big Donut
• Block Fort
• Double Deck
• Skyscraper

Difficulty

In Mario GP, players can choose between four difficulty levels of game play. These levels include:

• 50cc - Easy
• 100cc - Intermediate
• 150cc - Difficult
• Extra - Difficult, but all courses are mirror images of themselves. All left turns become right turns and vice versa. This difficulty is obtained by earning 1st place (a gold cup) on all four cups (listed below) at 150cc difficulty.

Characters

There are eight characters to race with in this game divided into three weight classes.

Lightweights

Small and fast, these characters usually have fast rates of acceleration and high top speeds, but can suffer from poor handling or being spun-out in collisions with heavier characters. They are the opposites of the heavyweights.

• Peach
• Toad
• Yoshi

Middleweights

These are good all-around characters. They are not extraordinary in any particular regard, but suffer from no serious weaknesses either. They can make lightweights spin-out in collisions, but can be spun out in a collision with a heavyweight.

• Mario
• Luigi

Heavyweights

Bulky and looming, these characters typically have good handling and posess the ability to spin-out all non-heavyweight characters. Neither their rates of acceleration, nor their top speed is terribly high, but this problem does not siginficantly prevent these characters from being competitive with the other weight classes.

• Bowser
• Donkey Kong
• Wario

Items

Items can be acquired by hitting an items block, a multicolored cube with a question mark in it. Items can be used by pushing Z on the controller.

Projectiles

• Green Shell (Single) - A simple projectile. Travels in a straight line and bounces off of walls. Makes a person who touches it explode.
• Green Shell (Three) - Three green shells orbit the driver until each of them is fired away. When fired, they act as single green shells do.
• Red Shell (Single) - An intelligent projectile. It locks onto the person one position in front of the player and attempts to crash into them.
• Red Shell (Three) - Three red shells orbit the driver until each of them is fired away. When fired, they act as single red shells do.
• Spikey Blue Shell - Targets the player in first place and hits as many people along the way as it can, but only if the intervening players get in the way.

Bananas and Bombs

• Banana - These can be laid on the track. They cause players to spin out.
• Banana Bunch - A group of five bananas trail a player until they are released. When released they act as normal bananas do, but while in a chain behind a player then can be used to spin out a player that is following too closely.
• Fake-item Bomb - These resemble item boxes, but when touched cause a driver to lose all speed and fly exploding into the air.

Mushrooms

• Mushroom (Regular) - Increases the drivers speed to 80 km/h (top speed is usually 60 km/h) for a few seconds.
• Mushroom (Triple) - Allows a driver to use a mushroom three times.
• Mushroom (Golden) - Allows a driver to use an infinite amount of mushrooms for a short, fixed amount of time.

Misc

• Star - Makes a player invincible to attacks and increases speed. If a player collides with someone with a star active it will cause them to explode into the air.
• Ghost - Steals a random weapon from some other player and makes the driver invisible to other drivers for several seconds.
• Lightning - Makes all other players smaller and thus slower because everyone has smaller tires. This state lasts for several seconds during which the user can flatten other drivers by colliding with their miniature form.

The Cups & Courses

Mushroom Cup

A fairly simple cup. It is not terribly difficult to win. The courses in this cup are:

• Luigi Raceway
• Moo Moo Farm
• Koopa Troopa Beach
• Kalimari Desert

Flower Cup

This is a cup of higher difficulty. It is more challenging than the Mushroom cup. The courses in this cup are:

• Toad's Turnpike
• Frappe Snowland
• Choco Mountain
• Mario Raceway

Star Cup

The star cup is even more challenging than the first two and has longer courses in most cases. The courses in this cup are:

• Wario Stadium
• Sherbet Land
• Royal Raceway
• Bowser's Castle

Special Cup

The special cup is the most challenging cup and can only be obtained once a player has won the Gold Cup (1st place) in the Mushroom, Flower and Star Cups at 150cc difficulty. The courses in this cup are:

• D.K.'s Jungle Parkway
• Yoshi Valley
• Banshee Boardwalk
• Rainbow Road

Prequels & Sequels

Mario Kart 64 does not stand alone. There are several other associated games making Mario Kart 64 just one element in the greater Mario Kart series.

Prequel

• Super Mario Kart - 1996 (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

Sequels

• Mario Kart Super Circuit - 2001 (Game Boy Advance)
• Mario Kart Double Dash!! - 2003 (Gamecube)

Other Games in the Kart-genre

• Diddy Kong Racing - (Nintendo 64)
• Crash Nitro Racing (Gamecube/Game Boy Advance/Playstation 2/Xbox)
• Konami Krazy Racers (Game Boy Advanced)

External Links