Mario Kart: Double Dash!! review

Tag-team the kart world

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Hectic

  • +

    unpredictable racing

  • +

    Dual-riders idea

  • +

    Untouchable multiplayer

Cons

  • -

    Kinda the same game

  • -

    It's over pretty quick

  • -

    Baby Mario chain-chomping your ass

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As the original power-up-loaded go-kart racer, Mario Kart can hardly be called a derivative, cash-grabbing franchise. Well, that used to be the case, anyway - Double Dash!! pretty much offers just one new thing for us to scream about, and that's the ability to control two drivers on one extra-long kart.

For the first time, you can choose, say, Mario and Luigi simultaneously, and swap between them mid-race. Mario drives while his bro acts as a gunner, tossing turtle shells and slipping banana peels on the track. The trick is finding a good balance of characters to put in these extra-long, pimped-out karts. Too bad the player combinations rarely, if ever, affect your ability to race.

While thekarts may handle similarly - some are slow with a high top speed, others accelerate quickly but aren't speedsters, and so on, but the differences are actually minor - each character's special weapon is what makes or breaks the race. Yoshi and the suspiciously gendered Birdo both tosshoming eggs that explode into useful items, Wario and Waluigi have a massive bomb to leave behind and Bowser can shoot a spiky shell that plows through everything. These are just a few examples of what you're gonna have to put up with on the Mario Kart circuit.

And that's the true advantage of Double Dash!! - its unrelenting action. Some of these new shortcut-laden courses are designed so tightly that there's just no way to keep your lead. Soon enough, you're barreling down the stairs of a cruise ship or power sliding through Donkey Kong's dense jungle brush - all areas that you'll see in some fashion in other kart games, but rarely crafted so clearly as in Mario Kart.

More info

GenreRacing
DescriptionIt's Mario Kart on vacation - plenty of friends, picturesque raceways and an all new experience for four players. But other than dual-riders, there's nothing new here.
Platform"GameCube"
US censor rating"Everyone"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.