Mario Kart 64
Too Funny Game #3
Type of Game
An essential tool for turning awkward situations into great days full of new friends.
Release date on Our Machines
June 1997 in Europe, well after Road Rash, but before the karting mode in Gran Turismo 7.
Developer
Nintendo EAD, which stands for Entertainment Analysis and Development, will become Nintendo Entertainment Planning and Development in 2015. Do we pay guys a lot of money for this kind of move?
éDITEUR
Nintendo Co. Ltd. which, by some miracle, has been called just that since the 1960s.
Mario Kart 64 : available on Switch. Thank goodness for that!
I knew very few people who owned the Nintendo 64. Of course, there was my cousin Walter Valise, who could have opened a Micromania in his bedroom, but I mostly played Donkey Kong or Turok at his place. Visiting a vacation buddy of mine around 1998-99, Teddy Perdrix, I finally discovered the power of Mario Kart 64. As we only knew each other through the prism of our favorite campsite in Ardèche, the atmosphere struggled to warm up at first. I have to admit, it felt a bit weird to show up in the middle of winter in the middle of the 91 department, when all we'd known together was the pool and the cicadas. Seeing him open the fridge to drink Viandox straight from the bottle didn't help either. When his friends showed up, I even ended up standing in the background, as if I were in the way. Then we had a race. I chose Yoshi, they took Mario, Bowser and Princess Peach...
Icebreaker 150CC
Half an hour and two championships later, we were all falling over each other laughing, hearts and butterflies floating above our heads. Even Bomberman 64, which we also tested a little and which I thought was at least as cool as Party Edition, didn't have such an intense effect. Speaking of Party, we also did a few sessions of Mario Party. And also Blood and Destruction Derby 2 on his computer. A laser game too (not at home, of course). Boy, how long did I stay at his place?
in Oil directions
Mario Kart is much more than a racing game. HA! What a lame sentence. Never mind, I'll carry on. Let's just say it's the perfect blend of ground-level competition and fighting game. Every five seconds, you can catapult your neighbor's vehicle into the scenery by throwing turtle shells or booby-trapped gifts at it. The gameplay is so precisely calibrated that you'll oscillate between extreme frustration and ecstatic jubilation at any moment. Mastering the skids, knowing the circuits shortcuts, learning when to swing that damn blue shell to send the leader of the race into a ravine... it all helps. Knowing how to take suction helps too. In fact, I once had a heated debate with someone who argued tooth and nail that there was no such thing as suction before Mario Kart Double Dash on GameCube. I told him at least twenty times that yes, there was on the 64 version too.
We almost got into a fight, but it was all in good fun. Never a real fight with Mario Kart, even if I'm still mad at the guy today. Anyway, even lesser players like him always have a chance of winning against the best, because the further behind you are, the more crazy power-ups you get by rolling through a bonus. If, in addition to being bad, you're dodging gifts, you might as well throw yourself out of the rainbow road right away. Still, you could track in first position for most of the race, and take a space combo in the face at the worst possible moment. Like, catching a shell just as you're driving over a footbridge, falling into the lava, getting rammed by Bowser on your way back to the track, falling back, grabbing a golden mushroom, catching up a bit, then being hit by a lightning bolt that sends you under a Thwomp (the big angry boulders, you know what I'm talking about) just as he drops... and finishing last.
In those moments when wanting to kill the people in charge seems like the only rational action to take, you notice that, in fact, you just want to go back for another round. This game gives us that often-true feeling that we can always do better next time, and finally get that filthy Donkey Kong off the podium. And then, the clock strikes five in the morning, damn it! But wait, I haven't even mentioned the arena battle mode with the balloons, where the fighting aspect definitely takes precedence over the racing! We had so much fun with that too! Honestly, we were laughing so hard, it was a total blast. No one can imagine how much fun we were having oh là là là lààààà! Er... well, it must be a long time since I've experienced anything like that.
You may be piloting a vehicle that's flat and barely more lively than a solex, but you'll still find everything that's so charming about the Mario universe. Fun, cute, chubby and smiling, even when you're blowing away the nice cows and poor moles that have the misfortune to get in your way... In any other case, I'd have found it pretty lame, especially during my teenage years. However, this Nintendo franchise always manages the strange feat of turning a pot of mawkishness into ingots of cool; the moronic becomes super awesome, the villain becomes too kawaii and funny as all hell. This trademark already worked with the platformers of the early days, and it proves to be at least as well suited to go-karting circuits. I've never idolized everything that revolves around the moustachioed plumber, but I'd be committing a crime against humanity if I denied that, well, actually yes, I really dig it.
Rainbow Tears
Ever since I was five and discovered Super Mario Bros. 2, in fact. Each title sends its own little vibe of nostalgia into my face. And Mario Kart does a great job of it. The primitive 3D style suits him, well... like a tire, I guess. Few titles developed in 1996 could say as much.
Sublimation 200cc
The music, like everything else I've said above, gets stuck in your head from the very first seconds, and does so to provide a lasting good mood. This time, oh, incredible, the legendary Koji Kondo doesn't appear in the credits! The onerous task of taking up his mantle falls to a newcomer by the name of Kenta Nagata. Personally, I think he's done very well, despite the enormous pressure he must have felt on his shoulders. All the tracks carry us along in their own way, perfectly suited to the settings they accompany. I'm not saying they'd make a good evening (or even day) playlist, but they do what they're supposed to do: get us into the swing of things without distracting us, get us going without overexciting us. I can't fault any of the compositions, really. From that moment on, the player enters the state of concentration needed to choose the perfect timing, and send his neighbor into the wall, thanks to a well-placed banana peel on the road. But I love the sounds even more than the music, I think. I used to burst out laughing every time I heard them, and I could almost repeat them from memory for each of the participants. The scream of joy, the exasperated swearword when you take a shell, the howl of despair when you fall fifty meters into the void... and Yoshi still has his little noises from the early days, that too-cute hiss that appeared in Super Mario World. He'll lose it in his first steps on Game Cube, I believe, in favor of the voice of a brain-dead moron. Why change it, really? In any case, some of these sound effects made it into the sound bank of my Windows session, dethroning those of Dungeon Keeper. Yeah, big achievement.
Full Throttle Revival
For once, my fondest memory of this game dates back to the second half of the 2000s, almost ten years after its release. At a time when even the PS2 was getting a bit old (I'd long since given up on Budokai 3), and on the PC I was running the Warcraft III DotA mod over and over again, my best buddy Randall Geyser would often come over to my place for a little retrogaming session, just to get into shape before heading off to the beach. I'd installed several emulators on my PC, so we could dive back into our childhood favorites without having to buy old consoles (and becoming a despicable pirate in the process).
While we had a lot of fun with Turtles in Time and Bubble Bobble, it was Mario Kart that most often occupied our trips down memory lane. The game becomes even more fun when played by two people on the same computer than with the original controllers! We'd press lots of keys at the same time on purpose, so that the keyboard would lock up. That way, the other person wouldn't be able to control anything and would fall into a hole, or end up crushed against a giant penguin on Sherbet Island. Listen again to the cries of these silly birds, looking them in the eye. You'll scream. Fatally, our games ended in tears of laughter, and rolls on the ground holding our stomachs. It was still more productive than hanging around college, pretending to study. Yeah, I used to have friends, and I used to have a lot of fun with them. Do you still have any yourself?