E3 Preview: Mario Kart DS / nsidr

E3 Preview: Mario Kart DS
Article by Mark Medina

At E3 2005, we were treated to the first playable glimpse of the latest addition to the always crazy Mario Kart series, Mario Kart DS. Nintendo showed off a single player and multiplayer demo of the game for everyone to play. I played more Mario Kart DS than I care to remember. My mission was simple: to play and observe as much as I could to ensure not a single detail gets lost in the throes of heated racing!

Before I delve into the actual single player and multiplayer gameplay sections, its important to get this out of the way: the touchscreen aspect of the Nintendo DS adds virtually nothing to the Mario Kart experience. The touchscreen is reduced to nothing more than a means of selecting the character you want to play as and which GP cup you want to race (in single player mode). In actual gameplay terms, the touchscreen isnt used at all -- at least in the E3 demo. I dont think that the core gameplay really requires any touchscreen enhancements or changes, but if anyone can add touchscreen gameplay to Mario Kart AND make it fun, its Nintendo.

Now without further ado lets get the ball rolling.

Dual Screens + Mario Kart = ??

All previous versions of Mario Kart always had you controlling your kart from a third-person behind-the-kart viewpoint with one section of the screen detailing your place in the race as well as another section of the screen showing an overhead snapshot of your position on the track. It worked pretty well then, but this Nintendo DS version (with its two screens) adds a dimension to Mario Kart that is relatively minor yet could prove its worth in terms of strategy and tactics when online and wireless network races become more commonplace. When races are more heated and competitive, any strategic edge could mean the difference between first and last place.

With this version, the top screen is dedicated almost solely to you and your racer. Small tidbits of information are scattered in the corners of the screen -- showing details like your position in the race, how many laps youve completed, and what item (if any) youre currently carrying.


Fun New Levels	Bottom Map

The bottom touchscreen gives way to more detailed specifics of the race. During a race the entire screen is a zoomed-in top-down view of the track showing your own position as well as every opponent within your vicinity. It does this by using a small thumbnail of your character and thumbnails of all your opponents, so you know exactly who is tailing you. Another innovation is that it actually shows you, in real-time, if an item is heading your way or if you yourself have launched an item. The advantages to this new system are obvious enough; imagine powersliding your way around a corner knowing a red shell is approaching and slyly manoeuvring your kart near a wall to ensure that the shell hits the wall just as youre turning the corner. Or seeing another racer launch a blue shell, giving you enough time to slow down and let another kart pass you so it targets the new leader instead of you. The strategic possibilities these new details like this provide give Mario Kart DS a tactical advantage over its single-screen predecessors.

Also shown on the left-hand side of the screen are each individual character, their ranking position within the race, and what item they currently have. This, again, could give you an opportunity to alter your tactics in a race environment.

Time-trial racing (a favorite among N-Forums members) is more refined in this version with the new map system giving players more details about a track. Knowing more about possible shortcuts is always a good thing for those hoping to shave off a few valuable seconds from their time.

Once the races are over (during the customary victory sequence) the bottom screen switches the track map to a full top-down view of the entire track (not a zoomed-in version) and each characters full name is listed on the ranking list.

Graphics, Sound, and Control Good, Bad, or Ugly?

The E3 build of Mario Kart DS appeared to constantly run at a silky-smooth 60 frames per second, and while some show-goers werent overly impressed with the zippiness of the frame rate, I was quite happy with the smoothness. The fact that all of the races on all of the demos were running in 100cc mode gives the potential for faster racing in the finished game with 150cc and possibly higher speed classes being present.

One thing I noticed was that during the single player GP Cup races there were a lot more trackside and background details present. Little things like more trees in the background, or fog and cloud in the Luigis Mansion track, or extra Cheep-Cheeps in the beach track were all present in single player but missing during the multiplayer races. These omissions were obviously made to ensure a smooth frame rate in multiplayer races, and dont hinder the gameplay at all, but were noticeable nonetheless.

All of the karts, characters, tracks, items, and maps are fully 3D in MK DS, unlike most of the previous editions in the Mario Kart series. And while it doesnt make the game any prettier for it, its nice to know Nintendo already has a solid frame rate locked down at this stage in the titles development.

In terms of sound and music, I managed to connect a pair of headphones in the single player unit, but because of the nature of the environment (with loud music blaring all over the Los Angeles Convention Centres West Hall and coming from all directions) its no surprise that I didnt get a fully accurate appreciation of the quality. Needless to say, from what I heard, the familiar Mario Kart theme music and sound effects were there, and Id expect the sound in the final build of the game to be up to par with Mario Kart standards.

Bowsers Back Again!

And now we get to the all important control scheme. As previously mentioned above, the touchscreen isnt really used during racing. All of the control is done by means of the face buttons and directional pad. Acceleration is mapped to the A button, braking to the B button, item selection and launching to the L or X buttons, hops and powerslides to the R button, turning to the left and right d-pad, and up and down to the d-pad (to direct shells, bombs, and bananas). Oh, and Start pauses the game. Overall, it was a pretty standard Mario Kart control system, and one that works very effectively. If it aint broke, dont fix it!

During a powerslide, wiggling the d-pad left and right brings yellow sparks to your karts wheels and releasing the powerslide at this point gives your kart a mini-turbo boost as seen in Mario Kart: Double Dash. The only difference is that you can either do a normal powerslide (just holding the R button), or do the mini-turbo version with the yellow sparks (holding R button, and wiggling left and right on the d-pad until the yellow sparks appear). There is no blue-spark version like in previous Mario Kart titles. The mini-turbo boost will be welcome to all time-trial addicts, and is actually quite easy to perform considering the fact that a d-pad is a lot harder to manipulate than an analog control stick.

Collision detection is already spot-on in the E3 build, I tested various scenarios to try to find a bug, but I had no such luck. I purposely let myself get hit by a bob-omb to see how accurate the detection would be, and yes the timing was bang-on! (Pun intended) Another time I was in second place, watched firstt get hit by the blue shell, and then deliberately drove into the blast radius to see if Id get whacked as well, and you guessed it, I did! Lastly, I tried an invisible hit by racing in a straight line, watching the bottom screen long enough to see an opponent directly behind me, and when I launched a green shell directly behind me (holding down on the d-pad) I saw the little green shell icon hit the character, and then the characters thumbnail go into the familiar tail-spin. Admittedly, I only tried it three times, but enough for me to consider the games collision detection to be near perfect.

Items and Characters

Mario Kart DS offers up the usual power-up items that Mario Kart devotees should be familiar with. The only new inclusion Nintendo has unveiled is the bob-omb. As with bananas, simply releasing the item has the bob-omb sitting there at the point at which it was released, or it can be launched in front of you (banana-style) by holding up on the d-pad when releasing. Its effect is similar to the blue shell, when detonated it blows up anything within its blast radius and, true to the Mario universe, it detonates after a few seconds, and only when something approaches it (i.e. you get the familiar red-flashing when you approach it, and it detonates a few seconds after that).

Returning items include single bananas, 3x bananas, single green shells, 3x green shells, single red shells, 3x red shells, single mushrooms, 3x mushrooms, golden mushrooms, lightning bolts, blue homing shells, and fake item-boxes. Item boxes themselves appear as 3D boxes hovering over the tracks. These work exactly like they do in previous versions of Mario Kart. Using a mushroom gives a nice graphical effect with white lines littered around your kart giving the sensation of speed when the turbo kicks in.

The characters present in the E3 demonstration are also the usual suspects. So far there are no new characters, and no surprises in the roster. Each kart is handled by only one character, making the GameCubes Double Dash the only Mario Kart to have two characters per kart.

Mario Kart DS features the following characters:

Mario and Luigi average top speed, handling, and acceleration, unaffected by size of other characters
Yoshi, Toad, and Princess Peach high acceleration, good handling, low top speed, easily bounced by bigger characters
Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario low acceleration, low handling, high top speed, can bounce smaller characters out of the way

Obviously there are slight differences between the characters in the same weight class but for the sake of simplicity they can be grouped together according to the similar traits they share with one another. Each character has his/her advantages and disadvantages and choosing the right character for the right track in the right situation is a matter of judgement.

The Split Personalities of Mario Kart DS

The E3 demo of Mario Kart DS was split into two: a multiplayer version and a single player version. There were eight Nintendo DS units lined up next to each other in the MK DS section of the Nintendo booth, and these were dedicated purely to eight-player races. None of the eight Nintendo DS units gave you the ability to play the single player version of the game. That was dedicated to a single unit at a different section of the Nintendo booth. The single player unit gave you the ability to play the GP Cup races against the computer.

There was another area I conveniently dubbed the Nintendo DS Online Demonstration section of the Nintendo booth that allowed you to race in a four-player online race against Charles Martinet (of Marios voice fame) and two other players next to you. These three DS units werent connected to the other eight and only allowed you to race against the two players next to you, and Charles Martinet. The only curious thing I found about this section was that, according to the Nintendo reps, Charles Martinet was supposed to be in Seattle, Washington at the time of the races, but because the Nintendo DS units that we all got our hands on only ever had Mario Kart DS running, with no option to peruse the menus or any other sort of control over the game options, there was no way of telling without a shadow of doubt whether or not the game really was running online with players in Los Angeles versus Charles Martinet in Seattle. All I could do was trust in the claims of the official Nintendo reps. (Charles Martinet was actually later proven to be at E3.)

The Lone Ranger

For the single player mode in Mario Kart DS, GP Cups consist of four tracks of eight racers, each with points weighted according to race results in each of the four races. Here is the point breakdown for each race:

1st 10 points
2nd 8 points
3rd 6 points
4th 4 points
5th 3 points
6th 2 points
7th 1 point
8th 0 points

As with earlier versions, after four races the character with the most points accumulated wins that GP Cup. In the E3 build, the single player mode only gave you the choice between two cups: Nitro Cup and Retro Cup.

The Retro Cup consists of these circuits:

Mario Circuit 1 as seen in the SNES Super Mario Kart.
Moo Moo Farm as seen in the N64 Mario Kart 64.
Peach Circuit as seen in the GBA Mario Kart: Super Circuit.
Luigi Circuit as seen in the GameCube Mario Kart: Double Dash.

All are faithfully reproduced from their earlier appearances in their respective games, with only Luigi Circuit losing any detail given its original appearance in the graphically superior Mario Kart: Double Dash.

The Nitro Cup consists of these four brand-new circuits:

Figure-Eight Circus a Mario Circuit-like track with a standard figure-8 as its track layout, and with a standard road surface akin to Mario Circuit.
Yoshi Falls a gorgeous track with a waterfall in the background that ends up on part of the track, with a dusty road surface littered with speed boosters, and with a cliff to fall into, I found this track is quite challenging.
Cheep Cheep Beach reminiscent of a Koopa Beach track, with a sandy road surface, an ocean to drive into, cheep cheeps to hinder progress, and different levels of sand dunes all designed to slow you down.
Luigis Mansion similar to previous haunted circuits, and with boos hovering above, a section inside the mansion to drive around, and another area with walking trees to hinder progress. I found this track the most entertaining.


Luigis Circuit	Luigis Mansion

All of these tracks are graphically superior to the Retro Cup in terms of trackside and background details. They looked and felt more detailed, which could probably be attributed to their originality and DS design.

As mentioned earlier, the touchscreen is used to select your character and the desired GP Cup, as well as minor things like continuing from a pause state.

Other already-present minor details are race skill rankings. Racing well in a circuit, winning, and achieving a fast time gets you star rankings. I was able to earn a double star and a single star, and I can only assume that doing well in all the races allows you to unlock previously unlocked content, like new GP Cups, extra characters, different circuits, and other such content.

One notable use of the dual screens is that introductory footage of the track youre racing on is displayed (as a single image) on both screens being split vertically rather than horizontally, giving a vertical widescreen effect.

Multiplayer Mayhem

Multiplayer races in the E3 build all had the same basic qualities. You were randomly assigned a character, the track was randomly chosen from the circuits present in the single player mode, and your starting position in the race was randomly chosen. You had little to no control over anything until the starting light turned green. Im assuming that in the final version of the game multiplayer racing will have plenty of options to play with. Ill be pretty disappointed if this randomness still exists in the final release.

However, apart from that minor annoyance, the racing is pure and classic Mario Kart. As mentioned earlier, extraneous details like background trees are not present, so the frame rate is silky smooth with no slowdowns or clipping issues to dampen the experience. Races are typically frantic, and the usual handicapping again makes its presence known. Its common for the game to give higher ranked racers crappy items and the good items to the lower ranked racers, thus doing its best to even out the competition. Still, as is the case in all Mario Kart games, the more skilled players tend to win most of the time anyway.

The Future is Almost Here

All in all, the E3 build of Mario Kart DS gave a good glimpse as to the mechanics in place for the final game, and a hint toward the gameplay possibilities in its single player and multiplayer modes.

Noticeably absent from this E3 build were the time-trial options, 50cc, 150cc, mirror, (possibly) other cc speeds, and of course any sort of battle mode in multiplayer. These will all no doubt appear in the final release of the game (apart from anything above 150cc). Any other additions will be a pleasant surprise to Mario Kart veterans and newcomers alike.

Personally, Id like to see some innovative use of the touchscreen beyond menu selection, as long as Nintendo finds a way to use it constructively and doesnt include touchscreen functionality just for the sake of including it. I dont think the thumb nub would work well at all for steering. It would mean losing out on the immediacy needed to perform complex powerslides and mini-turbos to achieve optimum time-trial times, for example.

Who knows what else Nintendo could achieve with this version. Multiplayer racing is already hectic, strategic, and incredibly fun. If they can include some incredible new game modes for online and wireless networking, Mario Kart DS has the potential to be the be-all and end-all for Mario Kart racing, or any racing for that matter.

I cannot wait until we get more details from Nintendo about this game. Any further revelations will surely get the Mario Karter in all of us excited. I cant wait for this game to finally come out so I can buy it and compete against people all over the world. My mouth waters at the prospect!