Wealth of modes, heaps of unlockable content and memorable race tracks makes this game is a outstanding racer!
Now Mario Kart DS was released 5 years ago as one of the DS Handheld's launch titles. Did it stand the test of time? Yes it did! The Game is absolutely brilliant and I will tell you why!
The Game's controls are pretty straitforward. You press A to accelerate, press the control pad left or right to turn and R to use the items. And that's it. Very simple to grasp controls that every Mario Game should have.
The Graphics are not the best but they work fine. There's some great use of 3D polygons and the environments themselves look vibrant and colourful. However, the texures are a little all over the place! Now I know the DS doesn't support texure filtering but Still! Anyway, the graphics are good overall but they are anything but polished.
The Gameplay is where the game begins to shine! The game is basically the same as all the other Mario Kart games where you can select your favourite Mario Character and cheat you way to the finish! Again Sweet! There are a range of different courses from original tracks to retro tracks. Besides the Grand Prix there is a multiplayer mode which is pretty self explanatory. There's also a misssion mode which was actually kinda fun. Mission mode was where Mario and his chum complete certain missions that get tougher and tougher. This Mode was NOT PRESENT IN MARIO KART WII?! Aww come on Nintendo! That mode was addictive, why did you remove it?! Anyway; there's a battle mode where you can square off against each other in baloon battles which allows players to make a nuisance out of other players with the baloons singnifying health. There's collect the shines where you need to collect as much shines as possible. There is a just a huge wealth of modes that I can't explain: but oh, there is a online mode but I found Mario Kart Wii's online play to be much better (simply because I can't connect my DS to the Internet. Drats!) All in all, awesome gameplay which is fast paced and just plain fun overall!
The Music is phenomenal and I literally cried buckets when I listened to the credits theme! It just has that emotion of like "Yeah I need to Win" type of thing and a dreamy mood at the same time. The SFX are good and do thier job nicely. The Voice acting is a little shallow, like each a character has limited line such when being selected, being hit etc. Overall, great sound and emotional music!
The Only downsides I found were that you had to complete a whole circuit for a single character in return?! Seriously, not cool! Mario Kart Wii allowed you complete a CUP to unlock characters and I thought this was the only downside, but it was a huge downside that prevented this game from getting a 9.5/10!
Mario Kart DS is outstanding! It's a great handheld racer and an instant classic at first sight! I will guarentee you, It will keep you busy for months!
The Good: Heaps of unlockable content, great sound and music(so emotional), good graphics, lots of tracks to race in, lots of modes to choose from, comtomizable content is awesome, items are balanced
The Bad: Unlocking characters takes looooong, texures are a little awkward.
The Ugly: No ugly points here!
Title: EPIC!!