THE FACTS: Mario Kart 64 Virtual Console - Nintendo 64 | 1-2 Players (simultaneous) | Saving: Wii memory (not-inc time trial data) | Out Now | 1000 Wii Points (£7.00 Online) Controller compatibility: Classic Controller; GameCube Controller Reviewer: Billy White  Mario is one of those franchises that people will always know and love, and the Mario Kart series isn't much different. The racing action and power ups work extremely well together, and Nintendo make these both gel together with excellence. Sadly, this Virtual Console release is lacking in content, especially when compared to newer editions such as Mario Kart DS and Wii. In Mario Kart, you choose one of the characters from the series, such as Mario, Yoshi or Bowser, and drive your way across a set of four tracks to try and claim the best rank from each race in order to win a grand prix. Each set of four tracks is available to be played in a different circuit class, ranging from slow and easy to faster and harder, however you can't choose different ability karts to add to the skill required. The tracks available (of which there are 16) are all decent, and none are absolute stinkers, although you can only play them as either a time trial (by yourself) or via a grand prix, with no option to play any track in any order, which really limits what you can do. In addition to this, the time trial doesn't work fully on the Virtual Console, since the original used N64 game paks to store ghost data, which is an unavailable feature here. This means that there will also be an error message constantly displayed in the top right corner of the screen in each time trial, rubbing in Nintendo's half-arsed nature when it came to porting this version.  Mario Kart 64 offers some nice tracks, some fairly good controls (although boosting round corners can often feel a bit mixed on the sensitivity front), some decent graphics and tunes, and some annoying modes. If the modes were sorted and gave more of an incentive to play, then this would have been a lot better, as it stands though, there's much better multiplayer fun out there for 1000 points. Final Score 19/30 Average Gameplay 7 The controls could have been tighter and the lack of options and iffy CPU let this game down Presentation 7 The graphics are fairly decent, with the music even more so, although the SFX can annoy Enjoyment 3 When you've got some friends around, this isn't a game that you'll get bored of... unless you've got MKWii Other 2 The battle mode is fairly good, but the lack of much else in this version brings the whole game down
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Review - Mario Kart 64 |