The single-player is how I have spent the majority of my time but its split-screen multiplayer is the game’s main strength. The bright Super Mario colour palette still really pops and the character sprites burst with personality. Similar to F-Zero, this uses Nintendo’s ‘Mode 7’ graphics technique to simulate the two-dimensional sprites driving in a three-dimensional arena through rotating the background texture map, which was incredibly novel for the time and is still charming despite how dated it looks. Anyone who owned this game in the ’90s will instantly hear the bouncy menu music on seeing this image But, I will attempt to convey how my experience has been coming back to this old classic in 2022 (happy new year, too!). Which makes this an almost impossible task – how do you review this without leaning on those old cherished recollections or its industry significance? I can’t, in all honesty. Not only that, this title was the birth of what became the mascot kart racing genre and is regularly hailed in many voted lists as one of the greatest games ever made. Alongside Street Fighter II and the awful Home Alone game we were given for that Christmas with the console, these are some of the earliest gaming memories I have. On hearing the bouncy menu music I am quickly thrown back to my old playroom in 1993, playing on a tiny CRT with my younger brother and dad – whom I now suspect was only playing to be the intermediary whenever tempers flared because I wasn’t letting my brother win. Well, Nintendo’s original in the now very successful Mario Kart franchise compounds both of those ideas.
I have also written in the F-Zero review about the difficulty of trying to separate the importance of what a game is to the legacy of a franchise or genre and also how to evaluate it from a modern sensibility.
In past reviews I have spoken of the ‘time travel’ effect with some video games and how returning to an old favourite decades later can instantly transport you to that initial childhood memory.
Its unique spin on the arcade racer led to many copycats but no series has ever really been able to usurp the kart-racing genre grand-daddy. Super Mario Kart was a commercial smash hit in 1992 (’93 in Europe) and one of the most popular games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). So, in this particular section, I will take the time to play a game of the past which could range from the NES era all the way to the Xbox 360/PS3 generation and share my thoughts with a rating out of five. In fact, I am definitely guilty of spending many hours playing the old timers as much as the shiny new stuff. And, sometimes you simply want to delve into an old favourite or a series you have heard great things about but never played. There are so many games to choose from these days and different platforms that it can be overwhelming deciding where to start. Rev your engines and grab a green shell – we’re jumping back to 1992 with the birth of the mascot kart racer Koopa Troopa never was one for listening when told to put his seatbelt on