Mario Kart DS Preview

Nintendo have a lot of franchises that they’ll probably still be making games around in ten years time. Mario Kart is one of those franchises. We’ve had a Mario Kart game on the SNES, GBA, Nintendo 64 and GameCube, and soon we’ll be able to play Mario Kart on the DS. Mario Kart DS is undoubtedly one of Nintendo’s key upcoming games for the DS and this was apparent at their post E3 Games Tour.

Taking up nine DS demo pods was Mario Kart DS. This set up was for eight-player wireless races as well as a single unit offering single-player racing action. The game was set up to play on what is hopefully one of the more simple tracks in the game. This racing circuit was the typical bland track that all the games in the franchise open with, but it was good enough to give us an idea on what the game was like.

The most obvious thing to notice was the sharp, bright visuals. We’re not talking GameCube quality here (obviously), but this is a fairly big step up from the Nintendo 64 version. While the karts weren’t the fastest (hopefully due to it being a low CC race), the frame rate was very smooth; something we hope will remain the same when racing on some of the more complex race tracks.

The game doesn’t seem to use the touch screen at all, but the bottom screen is used to display a real-time map of the action. Even in the few races we took part in, the map proved to be very useful, helping us locate other racers behind us and to see what projectiles were being fired in our direction. With touch screen controls probably not being suitable (Ridge Racer DS, we are looking at you), the map is about the best use for the second screen that we could have hoped for.

Controls are simple and faithful to previous games in the franchise. Weapons are fired using the left shoulder button and the right shoulder button is used to hop – useful for powersliding around corners. While the demo was rather limiting, most of the normal weapons seem to be there, as are the normal roster of characters. It’s also worth pointing out, if you didn’t already know, that the karts in the game are proper karts, not Double Dash style homemade fancy contraptions.

There isn’t much more to say. From what we played, everything seems to be in order. The controls are tight, the visuals are sharp and multiplayer racing is there thanks to the game’s WiFi support. If you are looking forward to Mario Kart DS, we haven’t seen anything that could potentially ruin your enjoyment of the game, but we also have seen anything that will set this apart from the other games in the series.

Check out our exclusive gameplay footage of the game.

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