I'd Watch NASCAR If It Were Like This! (Sunshine W/O)

 Note – This submission to rader6795’s “Let the Sunshine In” write-off is horribly, horribly late, and I’m sorry.


The focus of this write-off, to celebrate the release of Mario Sunshine, is to write about the fat, jolly little Italian plumber who has so entertained us through our formative years. Seeing how Mario has been in countless spin-offs over the years, there is definitely plenty of fodder to choose from. Heck, he even had his own feature film, though it might possibly be the worst disgrace of a movie ever to hit the big screen, and that’s even going by video game movie standards (::thinks of Street Fighter, shudders::). For better or worse, the little fat guy with the handlebar mustache and the red overalls has been a part of our culture for years now.

As a kid, I spent many a long night hopped up on Mountain Dew, grinding my thumbs down to the bone, eyes staring blankly at the TV screen, trying for the 1,000th time to get the little plumber over that damn drainage pipe. The original Super Mario Brothers would have been a natural choice, or its 2nd and 3rd installment were also like crack to me. However, there is one game I’m thinking of in particular that was even more like an opiate to me, one that I would rob old ladies’ purses for. Yes, my friends, that game is Mario Kart 64. So simple a premise, so flawless an execution, so glorious a tribute to our mutton-chopped little friend.

The basis of Mario Kart 64 is racing, for those of you who haven’t gathered that from the title. Upon firing up the game, you will be given a few different gaming options. There is the Mario Cup, Time Trials, or Battle Mode. The Mario Cup is a series of 4 races you can compete in. Like in professional racing, you will receive points based on how you place in each race, the most points wins. You can choose to race for 4 different cups, the Mushroom, Flower, Star, or Special Cup. Each cup contains 4 very different tracks to race on. Difficulty is determined by picking the size of your cart’s engine, specifically, 50cc, 100cc, or 150cc. 50cc is the easiest, 150cc is the hardest.

Time Trial and Battle Mode are also interesting modes of play in themselves, though you will probably spend the vast majority of your time racing. In a time trial, you can race around your favorite track, but then you must race again and try to beat your first time. Simple, but strangely addictive. In Battle Mode, this is a two-player mode in which you face off against a friend in a series of areas full of offensive items like turtle shells. Each player is surrounded by balloons and each time they get hit, one of them pops. The last one with any balloons wins. Again, nothing too complicated, but since you can get a battle royale going with up to 4 players at once, it can get pretty crazy.

Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo was a great game, and really did lay the ground work for what would later become about the only reason I had for even looking at a Nintendo 64. The basic premise of Mario Kart 64 is deceptively simple: it’s just go cart racing. Sound easy enough? Well, there is so much more to it than that, it’s not even funny. For starters, you must choose your racer from a cast of Mario favorites, including Peach, Mario and his faithful brother/sidekick, Luigi, and Toad. Each racer will have his own strengths and weaknesses, as well as driving styles. For instance, your larger characters like Donkey Kong and Bowser have great strength, and can literally ram other racers off of the road without doing harm to themselves. However, their size comes at a price; they tend to accelerate very slowly, and will usually start out at the rear of the pack. Toad, being a smaller character, has tremendous acceleration, and will immediately fly to the front of the pack. However, his top speed is not that great, and the others will quickly catch up, and he can easily be rammed off of the road by other racers.

Okay, so now we’ve established that there is a world of gameplay just in figuring out the variances of the different racers. Now, come the actual races. While the actual tracks themselves offer up challenges galore, what really makes these races such a crazy adrenaline rush is the power-ups and obstacles that can be found on the tracks. You will be flying around the corners at mach 20, doing some fine heel-toe work, hammering the gas while jabbing the brake, trying to keep in control, and then you also have the added havoc of not only the other drivers, but…turtle shells? Ah, yes, my friend. You see, what would a Mario game be without bizarre status-inducing items flying all over the place? Mario Kart 64 is no different. While scooting around the track, you can pick up stars which make you invincible for a short time, and able to run anyone else off of the track. You can also get turbo boosts that you can save until the time is right, preferably if you’re neck and neck with another racer as the finish line draws near. There are also the infamous turtle shell projectiles here. Once equipped, you will have an arsenal of three shells to fire at your enemies whenever you wish. Different colored shells have different status effects on your enemies, and have different properties while pursuing them.

Here’s a listing of some of the goodies you get:

Green Turtle Shells - These babies, when equipped, will rotate around your cart like a protective barrier of three shells, and can even fend off some attacks for you, though you will lose a shell in the process. Their best use, though, is to fire at your opponents. The green ones just shoot blindly forward, so careful aim is crucial. If you hit, your opponent is blasted off of the road.

Red Turtle Shells - Much the same as the green ones, only these are “heat-seeking shells,” so to speak. They will lock on to your nearest enemy to take them out. These are best saved until someone passes you, then you can have at them.

Banana Peels - When equipped, you will have a string of these yellow beauties trailing behind you, and you can release them whenever you want. When a driver hits a banana peel…you guessed it! They spin out of control and lose valuable speed. You can also strategically place your banana peels around the track to set traps for the other drivers. Just remember where you put them!

Lightning Bolt - This one is just plain nasty. It gives you the ability to zap other racers with a lightning bolt, shrinking them down to miniature size. Not that bad, eh? Well, your car will also only have the horsepower of a mini machine, so you lose major speed. As an added bonus, other cars can now run right over you and squash you. Quite nasty.

Fake Item Box - This one is just cruel. You can drop what looks to all of the other racers to be an item box. When they actually run into it, expecting something cool, they instead get blasted off the track. Try not to smirk as you let one of these babies go.

If you do happen to become a victim of a drive-by shelling, have no fear. The courses are usually set up in such a way that you will have plenty of opportunities to catch up to the pack, since they will be spinning out, flying off of cliffs, hitting penguins (yes, I said penguins. More on that later), etc. Believe me, once you get the hang of the controls, you are almost never 100% out of any given race. If you ever really get in a jam where you need to make up some time, that’s where your handy-dandy gadgets come into play, whether you use them to boost your speed, or blast other drivers off of the track. Remember, paybacks are a beeatch, my friend.

The tracks in the game are a spectacular layout of patented Mario gaudiness. Everything is bright and cheerful, round and bubbly. While flying through the levels, you will come in contact with all sorts of interesting characters, some of them will seem very familiar. Above all else, though, the tracks are meant to throw every conceivable roadblock in your way in order to keep your from zooming through the level with maximum efficiency. Racing on a ice-themed track? You better believe that you will have no traction, that there will be 100 foot drop-offs, and penguins will run in from of your cart. Racing around a harmless dirt track? Look out for those rocks! Racing on a highway? That tractor-trailer always seems to be in your lane. The point is that while you may get the hang of the levels in this game, you will never be fully prepared for the curveballs that will be thrown your way, especially when using multi-player.

Ahh, multi-player mode. That is where the real fun is to be had with this game. Aside from Goldeneye, this might just be one of the best multi-player console games out there. Until you have raced for hours on end, blasting away at your friends with shells while sliding on their banana peels (you sickos), you will have no idea just how fun this game is. Battle Mode is also fun, but it mainly concentrates on blasting each other instead of the actual racing. In my opinion, Battle Mode is not as deep as the actual races, and you may actually tire of it quickly, going right back to racing again. To each his own, and Battle Mode will always be there if that happens to be your cup of tea.

Really, you can’t go wrong with Mario Kart 64. The single-player action is addictive and about as much fun as you can possibly have with your clothes on. However, multi-player mode even blows that away, to the point that even today I will still take up any challenge to race someone on this game. If racing comically undersized go carts while firing shells and running over shrunken foes sounds like kid stuff to you, well then you, my friend, have just never played this game. I would highly recommend Mario Kart 64 to any racing fan out there, as well as people who are familiar with the Mario universe. Mario is still about as big as he has ever been at this point, but I still find myself going back to this old game to appease my Mario jones. Let the Sunshine in, everybody!


Here are the other participants in the “Let the Sunshine In” write-off. They probably submitted their reviews on time, so reward their punctuality, won’t you?

rader6795
chris_billings
arada392
search66
Rock_On
jeremy1456
pavona21
StarSoldier1
BaronSamedi3