Tendo City

Source: Planet Gamecube:

Quote:Nintendo has revealed details and images of Mario Kart on the GameCube, which will be called Mario Kart: Double Dash.

The images reveal 16 characters riding in pairs on their karts. One character drives, and the other throws weapons. Characters include Mario, Luigi, Peach, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Yoshi, Birdo, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Koopa, and Paratroopa.

We'll have some more details shortly. In the meantime, <a href="http://www.nintendo.com/e32k3/mariokart_feat.html ">eyeball</a> what NOA has revealed.

Update: Famitsu says the game WILL work with a LAN adapter; 8 players can play!(with two GameCubes and two copies of the game)

So it's finally got a name! And 16 characters each with speacial abilities and weapons! Looks incredible! But where did they dig up Birdo from? They must have been at a loss for characters...

Yea, who the hell is that, whats he from? I hope the tracks are as diverse and fun as those of MK64. MK64 has such awesome tracks; blew Diddy Kong Racing out of the water. 16 players...that sounds nice, but it seems as though we've lost Toad. Oh well.

It's generally accepted that Diddy Kong racing completely woops MK64 in single player, but MK64 wins in multiplayer.

Anyway, the idea of giving special unique abilities to each character is a good one.

Birdo is that pink creature that spits eggs from SMB2(USA). He's also been in a few other Mario games, like Super Mario RPG. All things considering, it's appearence isn't a surprise, with new characters like Baby Luigi showing up (All he did was sit in Kamec's dungeon! What use is he? :D).

Diddy Kong of course is a cool little guy, and now Nintendo is going to cash in on Rare's little creation using Nintendo's liscense.

Well, it's all sounding cool. Here's the question. Will the speed increasing coins make a come back?

Even if not, this seems to be something that will be far and above what MK64 was (MK64 just being a 3d version of MK). I wonder if they will decide to go all out on a single player adventure ala Diddy Kong Racing?

On top of that, they have system link going on. The big question there is if it will support using a hub/switch/router to link up to 4 systems together, or if they will just support 2 system link. If it's 4 system link, all 16 playable characters can be used in a single race! It sucks that true online support will be lacking, but gamespy pseudo support using some tunnel software is better than nothing.

Looks pretty damned good... although a little bright and saturated with colors. I can't wait for bigger screens!

Whoa, double characters on carts? Looks pretty awesome... will there be a co-op mode with each player, where drives and the other sabotages the other players? Will there be a mode available where it's just one character to a cart?

*abstains from noting Birdo's pair with Yoshi and making sexual reference to Birdo's mouth*

It's well known that Yoshis are asexual, as are Birdos it seems.

Bright and saturated with colors is just how I like my Mario games. I like it looking like a rainbow exploded in my TV.

Wish I'd read that. Two characters per kart eh? Well that means there's 8 total things to choose from, unless you get to actually pick who gets paired with who yourself, which I think seems likely. Hopefully they will allow multiple usage of the same character. Just alter the color scheme for each player using that guy, like in F-Zero.

Damn, this is awesome. I just hope they include an awesome adventure mode like the one in DKR. Rare showed how single player racing games should be done.

And I'd love to see the game cel-shaded since the cartoony style and exaggerated physics lend themselves so well to cel-shading.

I stated that based on the pictures... as you can see, there are two characters to a cart. I don't know if there will be 16 or 8 different pairs... and something tells me you won't get to pick the pairs. :( But you'll most likely be able to pick which character the driver is.

SCREENS!!!!!!!!!

















There goes my pants!!!

Ah well about cel-shading, but the game looks terrific!!

IGN says it will be 2-player co-op where one player drives and the other uses weapons. Supposedly each character has special abilities and weapons, and you can swap between driver and gunner during the race! I hope you can actually control the weapons too. This is one of the best multiplayer ideas ever! My friends and I would always do team battles anyway, and this makes it even better. I wonder how it will work if each player has their own kart instead of teaming up? Wouldn't it be great if they also let you set up teams like SSBM? That would be so much fun! I am finally excited about E3! Now if only the rumors that it is finished are true, it could be out by the summer!!!

WOW, put this on top of my most-wanted list for 2003 along with RS3 and F-Zero. This is so cool!!

Does Nintendo have so many big games to show off at E3 that they can afford to show Mario Kart so soon?


*prays for a summer Mario Kart release and a Mario 128 E3 presence*

http://www.nintendo.com/e32k3/mariokart_feat.html

Awesome... this '2 people per car' thing is unexpected and very cool... and it really does look like Mario Kart, except with vehicles that look closer to cars than karts... :)

Uhh... Gamespy mode will be fun too... even if it IS just 1v1.

Ha, they actually look like soapbox cars now. Perhaps they should change the name to "Mario Soapbox Car"?

Yeah, that'd be a better name for it... they really aren't carts...

Awesome!! I don't doubt that it's going to be one of the greatest multiplayer experiences of the year!

Anyone who does not immediately want this game is an insane monkey!

But the word "soapbox" is the stupidest word ever invented! :D

Well, now that I see more screens, it's confirmed. You CAN in fact select who to pair up with. In one, Peach and Mario are teamed up. In another Luigi and Mario are teamed up. In yet another, Peach and Pauline are teamed up. This is great! Now then, how are the karts themselves selected? Do you select them yourself or is it determined by who you first select as the lead?

Oh and, it's 4v4 at max ABF. For you though, the max will likely be 1v4 considering what you have said.

I still think hub support for a 4 system link should be done.

Anyway, at first F-Zero was interesting me far more than this, because with no data I thought it would end up just being a slightly boosted version of MK64. Now though, I'd go as far as to say this now interests me more than F-Zero.

Who is Pauline? Do you mean Daisy?

Yeah, I would assume that the net link would allow 8 players... with 4 on each of the two systems. But most people using it, I'd bet, would be playing with 1 person on each screen...

Indeed, I'm now looking forward to MK more than F-Zero, even if it's only slightly so. I'm curious to see how the cars will handle now that they're longer than before.

Yeah, Daisy. I was thinking of the one-time appearence of the girl in DK Arcade, as opposed to the princess of Sarasahasatasaland, or wherever Super Mario Land took place.

Oh and you should check out how people play net linked games on the XBox. While there are many who are just one person per box, just as often you have 2 or more looking for another 2 or more player match. In Halo specifically, I generally have a hard time finding anyone who is even allowing a single player on a box in a match. That's just FPS mind you, the genre where you would want the players not to see other's screens. In a racing game, where it's kinda irrelevent, I see mulitple players per box being the norm.

Again though, supporting up to 4 system link is something I really want them to add (of course I'd rather true online support be added, but this request is something I can see them doing).

It seems to have most of the Mario cast in it... 16 characters! Who ISN'T there that has been in more than 1 Mario game, other than other kinds of badguys other than Koopas and Koopa Paratroopas?

Oh, and F-Zero is still better looking.

Graphically-speaking, yes.

this game makes me wet myself with excitement. i like mario kart a good deal.

Yeah.

I meant graphically and in how much I'm interested in the game. F-Zero is just better... and I'm definitely looking forward to it more than Mario Kart. Mario Kart looks great... but F-Zero better...

Actually, the SMB2 booklet describes birdo as sexually confused, but Nintendo seems to have disowned the writer of that booklet and decided to make Birdo simply a girl.

I'd agree that F-Zero does look slicker and generally prettier. Yes, there are 16 characters and 8 carts to render, but everything seems to have taken a hit to keep the framerate up. The character models are barely passable (compare Melee's Peach with the closeup of Peach on Mario's Kart), and the environments are as low-poly as they come. Double Dash will have to keep the Karts close to each other to keep the gameplay interesting (driving alone on those tracks will probably induce major boredom), but I hope the developer does not resort to cheating AI (a la Mario Kart 64).

Quote:Originally posted by Nintendarse
I'd agree that F-Zero does look slicker and generally prettier. Yes, there are 16 characters and 8 carts to render, but everything seems to have taken a hit to keep the framerate up. The character models are barely passable (compare Melee's Peach with the closeup of Peach on Mario's Kart), and the environments are as low-poly as they come.

This is Mario Kart not Halo 2. I mean if they had jaw-dropping graphics in a Mario Kart game people's heads would just explode! I mean literally EXPLODE! Whereas in Halo 2 they have to put in great graphics to make up for the horrendously boring gameplay!*






*Only kidding!

Holy shit, this games looks awesome! Those screens are nice...I am so looking forward to this! I like how each character seems to have his own unique vehicle..and the levels seem nice and bright and colorful, much akin to the grand predecessor.

Quote:Originally posted by Dark Jaguar
Sarasahasatasaland

Isn't that the name of that sage in Link to the Past :D.

Birdo and Baby Luigi...they really did scrape the bottom of the Mario barrel to find them. Oh well, still looks like an uber-incredible game. I also like the new karts. They don't look exactly the same with different colors, they look different depending on who's they are.

RELEASE THIS GAME NINTENDO! NOW DAMMIT!!!

Mario Kart looks fantastic. This is Mario we're talking about. The backgrounds are supposed to be cartoony and simple. And in Mario Kart there are huge levels being drawn, while in SSB Melee the levels are tiny.

I'd probably be looking forward to F-Zero more than Mario Kart if Mario Kart DD was just a simple graphical upgrade to MK 64. That's pretty much what F-Zero is, but I'm still really looking forward to it.

And isn't it funny how as soon as Nintendo unveiled Mario Kart we got a name but a year after unveiling F-Zero we still don't know what the full title is.

Birdo is pretty popular these days, but indeed Baby Luigi is somewhat, odd. "I don't know about this Baby Mario..." Meanwhile, Koopa Jr. is saying "stupid babies" as he drives by. I STILL wanna know what happened to Bowser's first batch of kids... Seems to me they actually were killed in Super Mario World. Well, makes sense, almost all of them fell in some sort of lava and that stuff isn't candy.

I like the unique karts too. I just want to know how they are selected. Hopefully you get to choose them too, meaning Mario and Luigi can ride around in the DK barrel. The only other option is just using the vehicle that goes with the lead driver. You know, actually there's a third option. What if when you switch drivers the vehicle changes too? No, is crazy, too crazy... so crazy... it just... might... WORK!

The look of the game? Sure it's not super stunning like F-Zero, but it's "good enough". Remember, this is the generation where games finally look "fine as is"! Just like how the SNES generation was where 2D graphics finally became "good enough". Sure it can get MUCH better, but this is passable, decent, and no tweakin' needed.

Oh yeah, I remember reading that Nintendarse. I think that may have been just the translation, but then again why would someone translate something from something innocent TO something potentially controversial? On the other hand, remember that the voices added to Super Mario Advance are straight from the Japanese version, including Birdo's. To be honest, I think anything with no actual gender could easily become sexually confused in the presence of all those other gender based life forms. Birdo seems quite like Yoshi though, able to instantly reproduce at any time, so it's appearence could go either way without any real controversy.

Man, what I wouldn't do to get more screen shots...

Leave town and never come back?



Looks like Luigi is trying to give the Koopa Troopas some sort of turtle shell-shaped pie.

Man, this game looks beautiful!

'Can't wait to see more of it. :)

And here are IGN's impressions:

Quote:May 14, 2003 - It's the game you've been waiting for: Mario Kart. There's no other kart racing franchise in the world like it, and the time has finally come to welcome Nintendo's next iteration to GameCube. We all knew that it was coming long before Nintendo itself even revealed the game back in 2001. As one of the most widely loved games the publisher has ever dreamed into existence, Mario Kart's universal appeal guaranteed it a spot in the GameCube library. But until now, no one -- not even Mario himself -- knew how the game would play. Then a few short weeks back, Nintendo dropped the first details of the game, including its official title: Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Now, here at the E3 2003 showroom floor, we've finally played Nintendo's latest masterpiece for ourselves, and this is what we experienced.
Properly spelled with two exclamation points just like the classic Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Double Dash!! looks to take the franchise into both familiar and innovative territory with its dual rider gameplay design. That's right -- one kart, two of your favorite Nintendo characters at the helm as you whip around the classic Nintendo tracks hucking banana peels and turtle shells all over again. Except this time on GameCube, we're treated to new variations of our favorite courses and weapons, in addition to a much needed graphical and frame-rate overhaul. These common sense features are to be expected from the GameCube sequel, but the burning question remains: how does Double Dash!! play? We've done the dirty deed ourselves -- many times over, in fact -- here at Nintendo's E3 booth, and we've pried our fingers from the controllers to give you the full scoop.

For starters, the E3 demo lets players pick from one of 16 characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Koopa Troopa, Koopa Paratroopa, Yoshi, Birdo, Bowser, Baby Bowser, Wario, and Waluigi. *Phew* -- not a bad list of playable characters for an early E3 version! We know what you're thinking: "No Toad? Ack!" While Nintendo would not confirm which characters will be immediately available in the final build of the game, it did specifically state that the layout of the character selection screen should not be considered an indication of how many (if any) secret, unlockable characters will be in the final version.

As mentioned, Double Dash!! lets players pick not one, but two of their favorite Nintendo chums to pile into the same kart and hit the asphalt. Players begin the selection process by first picking their driver, and then immediately selecting their backseat rider. All players are free to pick simultaneously, so you'll have to be quick in four-player matches to snag your favorite racers if you don't want to be stuck with the less popular Bowser and Donkey Kong heavyweights (characters can only be selected once). After both characters are locked in, you'll next pick your kart -- a first for Mario Kart titles. Each kart is clearly distinguished as belonging to a particular character, but anyone is free to select any kart they'd like, with a few restrictions. For example, the larger characters such as Wario will not be able to squeeze into Baby Mario's tiny ride, and likewise, Baby Bowser is far too short to steer Donkey Kong's wooden barrel machine. The middle-ground characters like Mario and Yoshi can pilot whichever karts they want, making them the most balanced choices of the bunch, as always.

In the past, rider characteristics were determined by whichever Nintendo character was selected, but in Double Dash!! you'll pick two characters and a kart, so what determines things like handling, weight, and max speed? According to Nintendo, that's now tied strictly to the kart selected, not the characters. So if you go with Wario's fat, purple roadster, you'll be cruising a little heavy compared to Mario's spicy, red hotrod. There's also some strategy involved in picking your two riders, as each will bring his or her own special abilities to the race -- more on that later.
The final version of the game will, of course, feature a slew of colorful Nintendo courses (hopefully including the trademark "Rainbow Road" favorite), but here at E3, we're limited to a selection of three: "Luigi Grand Prix," "DK Mountain," and "Mushroom City." If you've played the N64 version of Mario Kart at all, then you'll probably have a good idea of the types of landscapes painting each of these distinct courses. Luigi GP features a simple asphalt roadway with grassy shoulders and nice straight-aways. DK Mountain is easily the most curvaceous of the three, with snaking chicanes and switchbacks littering a downhill mountainside slope that's lined by deadly cliffs, a massive barrel cannon that shoots racers for 10 seconds through the air, and a floppy wooden bridge just before the finish line. Mushroom City is similar in style to Mario Kart 64's "Toad's Turnpike," where blocky moving vans and cars crisscross around city blocks as riders swerve through multiple paths and attempt to follow ambiguous traffic pointers to stay on course. All three feel very much a part of the Mario Kart universe, and each requires several laps of playtime before learning their individual intricacies and mastering their hidden shortcuts.

Control-wise, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is much simpler in some ways and more complex in others. The A button hits the gas and B brakes, and either L or R can be used to power-slide around corners. One interesting note: the classic hop when hitting the trigger is now gone for reasons unknown, and the wonderful depth of the N64 slide technique has now reverted back to the basic drift found in the SNES and GBA versions. This means that you'll no longer be toggling your control sticks back and forth as you attempt to squeeze out a quick speed boost -- just mash a trigger and drift around the corner like everybody else. While Nintendo states that this could change in the near future, we must admit that we certainly hope it finds a way to inject the wonderful depth and technique invented in the N64 hit back into the GameCube sequel.

While the driving controls have been toned down, the item warfare has been significantly improved, making this latest GameCube Mario Kart title a vast improvement in dishing out the Nintendo-flavored pain. Players can hit either the X or Y buttons to use items depending on their personal preferences, as both function the same. Now here's where the added depth of the dual-rider setup comes into play. As players race over the multicolored, rotating item blocks lining the track, they'll trigger the slot machine item selection window as before, and hitting the Y or X buttons will stop the spinning and select an item for use. Although the ability to hold down the item button and trail an item behind your kart has been removed, in some ways, it's for the better. Keep reading.

Each of the two characters in your cart can hold an item, and only the backseat passenger can dish them out while the front character mans the wheel. This means that when an item is picked up, players can press the Z button to swap the characters' positions and pick up a second item. The switching animation is very fast and seamless, as both riders simultaneously swing around the side of the kart and swap seats without skipping a beat. So if you're in last place and snag yourself a really good item (as will often occur when you're trailing behind), you can pocket that bad boy by switching riders and keeping it up front for a while. This means that Mario Kart players can finally bust out a lighting bolt when in first place or save a cluster of red shells for that pesky second place racer looking to make his move.

But what's the disadvantage to only using items with a single character while the other holds onto something special? Each Nintendo favorite comes with special items that only that character has the chance to pick up within the item blocks. For example, when Bowser stops the slot machine from spinning, he has a chance to earn a special, super-sized, spikey Bowser shell that consumes over half the width of the track and destroys all racers in its path. If Bowser is busy hanging on to a star item in the front seat, then the player is missing out on the chance to snag that item in the back. This tradeoff adds much more strategy to Double Dash!!'s item usage than the old-school method of pulling items behind the karts, and we definitely approve.
One thing missing from this new item storage system is the ability to protect your backside from oncoming projectile attacks such as the deadly seeking red shells. To make up for it, Nintendo has designed a system that isn't yet functional in this E3 version. As items such as red shells zero in on their targets, players will be able to spot them for a brief second before impact and actually dodge them by pulling off a drift maneuver. Nintendo is still tweaking the move, so we'll have to wait a bit until we test it out for ourselves, but we're certainly glad to hear that its in the works. Something else that's supposedly still coming (yet not in the E3 version) is the ability to recover from banana slides by tapping the brake; hang in there, Nintendo says that we're likely to find it in the final game, and we're very thankful for it.

Another cool defensive move that we actually witnessed for ourselves is something that we like to call the "backseat item swipe." If an itemless racer pulls up close to a nearby enemy kart that's carrying an item, he'll reach over and swipe it right out of their hands. It's a move similar to the old ghost item that's sure to cause much angst in heated multiplayer matches. There's still no word if ghosts are in the game or what the final item list will offer, but we can confirm that we have seen green and red shells (single and groups of three), stars, lighting bolts, mushrooms (single and groups of three), banana peels, and the famous spikey, blue turtle shell that seeks out and destroys the first place kart -- except this time, it has wings. The sucker just flies through the air and dive-bombs the leader from above, causing an explosion that will even rock nearby racers within a fairly large radius. Now that's the kind of firepower that we've been looking forward to in our GameCube sequel!

We've also been looking forward to GameCube's graphical enhancements, and we must admit to being slightly skeptical based on Nintendo's early, pre-E3 batch of screenshots released last month. But after seeing the game in motion before our very eyes, we're truly very satisfied with the brightly colored eye-candy presented in Double Dash!!. The framerate is a solid 60 frames per second, and it even holds up perfectly in four-player split-screen mode. (While most kiosks here at the show are set up for single or four-player split screen gameplay, Nintendo is also showcasing Mario Kart's eight-player LAN support at its booth -- we'll be back with a full, separate report of how they've set it up, how it looks, and how smoothly it performs using the GameCube's broadband adapter and local-area network connections.)

Double Dash!!'s animations especially are extremely well done and detailed. Characters riding in the back of your kart feature custom animations that are appropriate for the items being used. For example, they'll hold a banana in hand and turn around to face either forward or backward depending upon whether you decide to toss it ahead or behind your kart. As you get close enough to swipe an opponent's item, you'll see your backseat partner literally lean over, extend his arm, and grab the item from the hands of the poor, helpless victim. If you snag a multi-item such as three mushrooms, you'll watch them juggle and balance the bunch as you prepare to absorb the boost. It looks very polished, but you'll have to pry your eyes from the oncoming obstacles to consciously take note of them.

The style is still very cartoony and the pace is still nowhere near the mind-melting speeds found in F-Zero GX, but Double Dash!! looks, feels, and plays exactly how a GameCube Mario Kart title should here at E3 2003. With twice as many lovable Nintendo characters packed onto the screen as before, resisting this charm should prove twice as tough for even the most jaded of Nintendo critics. Even as we sit and transcribe these gameplay details and impressions, the only thing truly occupying our brainwaves are fantasies of returning to the show floor and getting another round of Double Dash!! under our belts. We'll be back with first downloadable gameplay footage of Mario Kart just as soon as we can get back out there, so sit tight and check back very soon to see it in motion for yourselves!

-- Cory D. Lewis

Have you guys seen the movie Nintendo has here? WOOHOO! Check out the level at the very end of the movie with the volcano! And there's a giant Chain Chomp weapon!!!

I know, how cool is that!

Too bad that rumor of it being finished and coming out this summer turned out to be false. :(

Although it could actually be complete but Nintendo wants to save it as their big holiday title...

Holiday title..!? That sucks...man, there goes my summer. Now I can't play it 'till halfway through my freshman year. Curse them and their counterproductive marketing voodoo.

Yeah, it would have been too amazing if they announced it was shipping in a month. I would have popped. I'm a bit worried because the release date is TBA 2003, and TBA should strike fear into the hearts of any Nintendo fan. However, they have been pretty good with release dates the last few years (excepting SFA and ED), so I'm not too scared. It just better come out before school, or I swear I will flunk out of all my classes. And since I just have Computer Science classes left, that won't be a good thing at all.

I could have sworn that I read a fall 2003 release date.

Oh really? That's good. I probably just saw the TBA 2003 on Nintendo's old Mario Kart, before I found the E3 sub-site.

Well that's what I saw on Nintendo's presskit page, but their E3 page says nothing.

But the game looks pretty far in development so I'm sure it'll be out sometime this year.

http://www.nintendorks.com/editorials.ph...entID=2543

Quote:One good sign was that the e3 version supports LAN play for 8 GameCubes linked together. Earlier reports stated that the game would only allow 2 GC's to be linked.

I don't think its that new news, but its still cool, and doesn't look like it was said in this thread... :)

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
I don't think its that new news, but its still cool, and doesn't look like it was said in this thread... :)

8 Cubes?



Thay sounds like it'd be more trouble than it's worth to organize. wouldn't that also equate to 8 TVs?

.... Yeah.

But according to Nintendo, setting up eight Gamecubes and eight TVs together in one room is more practical than playing online.

Nintendorks just posted their E3 report, you see. :)

And I agree -- that'd be a bit absurd. I wonder... maybe they are just doing it to allow 8-player internet play with a spoofer? :)