At Home with John and Debbie

The second game I put in my DS was the one that came in the box: Mario Kart DS.

There’s not a great deal to say: it’s as perfect a rendition of Mario Kart as you can get, on a handheld. There are new courses and “retro” courses from the SNES, N64, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance versions. I’m still as useless at it as I always was.

The big new draw is of course the online wireless Internet play. I had some hassle getting it working with my wireless router — I feel sorry for non-technical parents faced with this — but I got there in the end.

Starting an online game is simple, but not all that flexible. Your only options are whether to play against friends (people with whom you have exchanged “friend codes”), rivals (people who the system deems to be at a similar level to you), people in your continent, or anyone worldwide. After that, you’re randomly assigned opponents from the pool you selected.

If you know me, and have MK:DS, add my friend code: 305005-165691, and let me know yours.

The online play itself is pretty much perfect. There is no way to chat with your opponents (even though the DS has a microphone for voice chat, and a stylus for handwriting), so you miss out on the chance to banter about your victories and defeats (mostly defeats in my case). I suppose this is a child-friendly decision on Nintendo’s part, since it means there’s no chance of children being groomed, sworn at, or exposed to any other kind of “adult” chat.

Now, why do other players keep tearing past me?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2006 at 19:15 and is filed under Video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.