Best Mario Kart Game

[SoloAJ]

SMK easily for me. Mario 64 always seemed lame to me. I just couldn't ever get into it. Maybe it was just the age difference and the freetime I had when I played SMK.

I actually thought DD was a lot like MK64...neither impressed me much.

[Shoe]

It's very close between SMK and DD for me. SMK is by far superior when it comes to match race and battle mode, and perhaps even the races as well (some of those tracks are just classic). I never liked Mk64 much... just couldn't get into it, and the computer was way way too bias for giving players in last place good items -- good driving meant nothing in the N64 version. I thought DD was awesome, mainly because I felt it reverted back towards the SMK roots, and the 4 player mode is really the only big advantage it has over SMK. It's a very close call for me between SMK and DD.

[grando]

SMK >>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;> DD

DD is brutal compared to the original

you can't even jump!

[chuckleslovakian]

I have to give some love to Mario Kart DS. Online play, mission mode, and lots of great courses from the other 4 Mario Kartsas well as awesome new courses. I guess the only disadvantage it had was that you had to have 4 people who all owned a DS in order to play in the same room.

[kickpushcoast]

from this post its painfully obvious most people here havent played MKDS, i ve played every mario kart except double dash and its the best hands down. and the skill level needed to be good at it is much higher than the other ones, look at some youtube videos of yoshi falls and F8C. 32 tracks, 60 fps, tons of karts, plus wifi play, easily the best MK

[JuntMonkey]

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MK64, whatever age category 24 comes into, and it's not close.

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See, that's the reason I made this thread. I don't know what happened, but at some point in the last few years, Mario Kart 64 magically became one of the best games ever made according to way too many people.

When MK64 came out, it was a disappointment. Many reviews were mediocre. Next Generation magazine gave it 3/5 stars, and IGN gave it an 8.1. Sounds good, but considering this was one of the most anticipated games of its time, it was a huge letdown. Gamespot gave it a 6.4.

Super Mario Kart is far superior for the single-player game. MK64's tracks are dull and often overly long. The worst thing about it though is that the game's A.I. cheats. The computer will almost always catch up to you no matter how far ahead you manage to get, and the items are completely rigged.

MK64 obviously (and by default) gets the nod for 3-4 player games, and I do agree that they can be quite fun. The racing matches aren't that great for the above reasons, but battle mode is fantastic.

The age poll turned out to be worthless because of sample size. In a nutshell it was that younger people would like MK64 better just because they were too young for SMK and didn't realize what a drop in quality MK64 was.

I haven't played the DS version, but I imagine that it gives SMK a serious run for its money.

FWIW, SMK is #15 on the most recent IGN Top 100.

Also, I liked this quote:

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The best Mario Kart game is a dead Mario Kart game.

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[popesc]

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I never got into MK64 like most people. Not sure why. I love DD and SMK. It went DD>SMK>>>64 for me. The others I haven't played.

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I agree, and I have a reason. SMK was an incredibly fast paced game. Lap times were between 10 and 20 seconds most of the time. 64 had much larger and wider tracks and it really slowed down the pace. DD returned to the fast pace of the original, but the abundance of items made things more frantic.

[JuntMonkey]

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I never got into MK64 like most people. Not sure why. I love DD and SMK. It went DD>SMK>>>64 for me. The others I haven't played.

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I agree, and I have a reason. SMK was an incredibly fast paced game. Lap times were between 10 and 20 seconds most of the time. 64 had much larger and wider tracks and it really slowed down the pace. DD returned to the fast pace of the original, but the abundance of items made things more frantic.

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Good point. I said "dull and overly long" about MK64, but you pinpointed it better.

[MarkSummers]

yeah the courses on mk64 were pretty long, but the shortcut on rainbow road was so awesome it kind of makes up for it. for those of you that dont know it, on the first big drop, you can cut off around 30-40 seconds off your lap by jumping off the ramp to the left. if done right, you land all the way down on another portion of the track. really cool when you can get it to work.

[soah]

In absolute terms, MK64 was probably a slightly better game than SMK... but in relative terms, SMK wins hands down. SMK was possibly the very best Super Nintendo game. I loved it. M64 was a letdown. The single player mode was absurdly easy to beat. Everyone I knew was able to beat every level within days of getting the game. The graphics and course design in M64 were 10x better... but not the gameplay.