This column originally ran on September 30, 2009.

The Mario Kart series has been around for nearly two decades now — 20 years of throwing red shells at opponents and running over question boxes. Checkpoint takes a look back at the influential racing series, and tries to decide which title is the game’s best. Hint: It has nothing to do with Mario Kart Arcade.

Super Mario Kart

Chris: The Mario Kart series started way back in 1992 with Super Mario Kart for the SNES, a game that ultimately was the third-best selling title ever released for that system. Brings back memories.

Shaun: I didn’t end up playing it until after the one for the 64, but I still enjoyed it all those years later. It withstood the test of time.

Lee: It was fun being able to relax with some friends and enemies and just go racing. Until somebody brought lightning bolts to the party.

Chris: And then they started flattening people.

Shaun: Were there lightning bolts in the first one?

Chris: Yep. They made you small and flattenable, like Peach’s cupcakes. Which never made sense to me.

Shaun: Yeah, getting flattened sounds familiar. That happened a lot to me.

Chris: Still, the game was pretty unique at the time. There were some decent racing predecessors on the NES, like RC Pro-Am or Michael Andretti’s game, but nothing that combined popular characters into a surprisingly solid racer.

Shaun: And it was pseudo-3D, which was awesome at the time. It’s also one of the more solid spin-offs ever created. Crash Bandicoot Racing? Jakk…racing thing? All terrible. Mario Kart kinda set the standard.

Chris: Diddy Kong Racing wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great. And let’s not talk about the Sonic one.

Lee: They were able to take a popular franchise and outsource it to another genre. Prior to that, the only racing you had to do was outrun a floating mask.

Chris: There were a couple things that bugged me about this game. One, the power-sliding mechanic was pretty stiff compared to later iterations, but I suppose that’s to be expected. Two, depending on what racer you chose, the computer made the finishing order the same every time.

Shaun: Yeah, that bugged the competitive side of me. It cheapened the races. But then again, I guess the multiplayer made up for that somewhat.

Lee: It was difficult because you knew where your enemy was, and they knew where you were. It came down to driving around hoping the other person didn’t get a star.

Chris: That might be the best battle mode in the series. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

Shaun: Actually, I agree; the later modes were not really even worth playing. They did so much right with the first installment.

Lee: Maybe not that they did so much right, but that later versions did it wrong.

Chris: On the plus side, the computer opponents took the same line on every lap, so you could drop banana peels and turtle shells like a pro.

Lee: Back when you could put shells behind you.

Chris: The simpler days.

Shaun: I was a pro at firing shells backwards. That was my favorite part of the whole game. It was an example of a system that is easy to learn but rewarding to master.

Lee: They got ridiculous with the later shells. Not only are they blue, but they have spikes. And wings. What creature looks like that?

Chris: None of god’s creatures, that’s for sure. All right, answer me this: is this the best Rainbow Road in the series?

Lee: Absolutely. You want walls? Too bad. You just have to slow down around the turns like a real racer.

Chris: And don’t you dare try and cute little stunts with Koopa Troopa or Toad, because DK Jr. and Bowser will be knocking you off the edge. Repeatedly. That’s when Lakitu earns overtime.

Lee: At least they didn’t throw in multicolored Monty Moles. Just a few invincible thwomps. Nothing you can’t handle.

Shaun: The race had so many variables that it was impossible to guarantee success like the other stages. Another rider drives into you? Dead. Drive over a badly placed banana? Dead. Slide too hard? You get the picture.

Chris: That track was brutal on 150 cc. I think I broke a few controllers having to retry that over and over.

Shaun: I don’t know. The 64 version’s Rainbow Road was great, and it had that awesome shortcut that was so hard to pull off. Do you remember that?

Chris: Yeah, I remember that. Cheap, but worth it if you pull it off.

Shaun: You had to drive off the ledge at just the right moment, or risk dropping into the abyss of death.

Chris: Still, it’s nice that we were able to talk about this groundbreaking game without mentioning a monkey in a wifebeater. Aw, damn.

Lee: Not just that, but he was a baby monkey. Donkey Kong was really raising him the wrong way.

Shaun: He was my least favorite character. Always is.

Lee: Kongs need to run free, with only a necktie to cover themselves up.

Shaun: So indecent.

Chris: I don’t think he was the legal age to drive. It would have been much better if he’d been pulled over by a cop on Mario Circuit 1.

Mario Kart 64

Chris: Mario Kart 64 came out a few years later, sporting some improved graphics, a couple new characters and some pretty fun stages. But did it top the original?

Lee: No.

Shaun: Yes.

Chris: No. In fact, I’ll just put it out there: this is my least favorite Mario Kart game. It’s not even close.

Shaun: Okay, it perfected everything in the series, brought some amazing new stages and took full advantage of the 64′s newfangled graphics.

Lee: MK64 had some new stages, but fun is not what I would call them. You want to get around the giant Yoshi egg? Guess which way! You just want to drive through a nice jungle? Natives are too busy throwing coconuts at you for you to have time to respect their culture.

Shaun: Wario Stadium is one of the best levels in the entire series.

Chris: That I’ll agree with. I always liked that track. For me, this game was the worst for two reasons: rubber-banding and CPU ridiculousness.

Shaun: Okay, yes, the CPU pulled some crap to win sometimes, but I greatly preferred that to laying down and dying each race.

Lee: God forbid if you get in eighth place. The game will throw blue shells and stars at the computer racers. If you’re in eighth, get used to throwing banana peels forward.

Chris: Every time I got a golden mushroom in fifth place and spammed it over and over, only to see that bastard Toad beside me going exactly the same speed, part of me died. And those parts aren’t coming back.

Shaun: Toad was a pimp, that’s why.

Chris: Toad was not a pimp. Ever. No, I take that back. He was a pimp in Mario 2.

Lee: He was a decent character in the first Mario Kart, but in this one he didn’t have it where it counted. How often did you have to drive on the grass, anyway?

Shaun: The sliding was perfect, and the steering was as precise as it has been in the whole series.

Chris: This game did have the best powersliding. And the best landing-from-a-high-ramp effect. POOMP.

Lee: YOSH.

Shaun: And the traffic level? Amazing. They have tried to do it again, but it was never as successful as it was in that game. And the ability to jump! It’s small, but it makes a big difference and you miss it when it’s gone.

Lee: You could jump in the first game.

Chris: Not to mention the feather, for added helpful–er, uselessness.

Shaun: Yeah, but not in the later ones. Okay, at least not in Double Dash.

Lee: They made up for it in Double Dash with the ability to backhand your opponents. You had to play heavy characters to avoid being beaten like a well-beaten egg.

Chris: Admittedly, I poured a ton of hours into MK64 with a friend of mine back in the day. It’s still a good game, but some of the stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Shaun: MK64 was one of the reasons I bought the 64, and it was one of the best multiplayer experiences on it. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I still regard it as the pinnacle of the series. It was great and influential at the same time.

Mario Kart: Double Dash

Chris: The Nintendo GameCube got a brand-new MK experience that received a lot of puzzled looks while it was in development. Two people on one kart? Blasphemy! But Double Dash proved to be a surprisingly good co-op experience, wouldn’t you say?

Shaun: Surprisingly, yes. It was actually very deep, and had a great co-op mode.

Lee: I am a big fan of Double Dash. The characters, the specials, the levels. If God designed a Mario Kart game, it would look at this game like a step-brother.

Chris: So God designed a game that…His sister…married.

Lee: It wasn’t a Christian wedding, and it isn’t recognized in several states. But their love is eternal.

Shaun: Each track was also great; I think I can remember more of these than any other installment.

Chris: I liked the concept of specials in that game too. You were encouraged to pair up matching characters so you’d get more of them, but you could still use anyone you wanted.

Shaun: The ability to have two power-ups at once was also very well done.

Chris: I was not, however, a fan of Petey Piranha and King Boo.

Lee: No, once they got in the game it was very difficult to win. Perfect scores were very far out of reach.

Shaun: I did like Boo. I never liked the piranha, because…it’s a plant. The designs get pretty outlandish, but I don’t need a plant driving my car.

Chris: Giving them access to every special in the game ruined that very mechanic we just talked about.

Shaun: On the other hand, the fact that their power-ups were random did not work in their favor. But it was still cheap.

Lee: I was fond of playing as the Koopas. They have been stepped on and kicked their entire lives. It was about time they showed their skills on the road.

Shaun: That was my favorite pair as well. Them and the Toads, actually. The Toads controlled very nicely, although the idea of a girl Toad creeps me out.

Lee: Hey, if the Smurfs got to have a girl, the Toads can have one too.

Chris: I liked playing as the Yoshi/Birdo combo because of the egg specials, but that meant I had to listen to/look at Birdo. So…I’m torn.

Lee: Never, EVER play as the babies. Every time you lost you got an earful about the reason Papa Mario drank and left his children in the care of Yoshis.

Chris: And then he backhanded them.

Shaun: Yeah, I’ve gone on record multiple times saying baby characters are awful in everything but Yoshi’s Island. And even then, it’s iffy.

Chris: This was the point in the series where Rainbow Road started getting…complicated. Loops, flips, cannon-like things…

Shaun: That level made me so mad. So, so mad.

Lee: Well, at least they had some walls. They just wanted to show off how magical kart racing can truly be, especially when you wish among the stars.

Shaun: There was some cool stuff. I liked the huge tunnel that you shot up. Intense.

Chris: The plus side of the DD Rainbow Road was that stars occasionally landed on the track. Then it was on. Great music, too.

Lee: The music was all right. Nothing like the first Rainbow Road, but it was still a good tune to hear while racing.

Chris: DD also introduced the all-cup mode, which was a great way to spend an hour or so with friends.

Shaun: That was the best way to compete, probably in the whole series. Things got really hectic once you started nearing the end.

Chris: We either battled to the death to see who would get first, or had somebody run support and try to get the other team a perfect 160 points.

Shaun: Between the co-op elements and great competitive races, Double Dash had the best multiplayer.

Lee: And it gave a multiplayer alternative to battle mode. Well done, but it looks like they moved in another direction.

Chris: Yeah, the original game is still my favorite, but I really enjoyed this game. It’s a shame we probably won’t see anything like it again.

Shaun: I would hope they would at least include the option in future installments. That’s my hope.

Mario Kart DS

Chris: Mario Kart moved over to the handheld market with the Super Circuit title for the GBA, but really seemed to perfect the formula in Mario Kart DS. There was a lot to like about this game, except…snaking.

Lee: The box art was pretty.

Shaun: Ha ha, snaking. So many people were so angry about that.

Chris: If I had played more online, I probably would have been one of them.

Shaun: I didn’t really see the big deal. If you tried it, it made a small difference, but it took too much effort.

Chris: That just kills the fun for me. Having to powerslide constantly, even in straightaways, isn’t my idea of a good time.

Shaun: Exactly. It was more fun just to play it traditionally.

Lee: I was an instant fan when they introduced my main man, Dry Bones.

Chris: And his skeleton car.

Shaun: I second that with Dry Bones.

Lee: The only character who could get into a horrific accident and walk away. Everyone else just gets gored. Dry Bones? Nope. He’s already dead.

Chris: Dry Bones is also able to show disappointment better than anyone else. Nobody commits like he does. Something went wrong? Throw your head!

Lee: Got a silver? Seizure until you break apart!

Shaun: Yeah, I appreciated his intensity.

Chris: This game was the first to use classic tracks from the older games, and I’m a fan.

Shaun: The multiplayer was also very well done — it’s probably the shining example of the DS’s online multiplayer capabilities.

Chris: Exactly. Taking Mario Kart on the road is already a good recipe for success, but wireless multiplayer takes the cake. Plus, the DS is set up perfectly to show you the track and surroundings and other information on the bottom screen, like the SNES days.

Lee: Overall, I enjoyed my experience with the game.

Shaun: For all the gimmicky DS games we see, MKDS really took advantage of the strengths of the handheld without overdoing it. Honestly, I miss it when I play now. The shoulder buttons gave my hands cramps, but it was worth it.

Chris: True. All the more reason not to snake. Friends don’t let friends snake.

Shaun: Friends kill friends who snake.

Chris: Although all those bastards who do it non-stop deserve carpal tunnel, so maybe that’s a good thing.

Lee: Yeah, kinda like natural selection.

Shaun: Karma. Mario Kart Karma.

Chris: Kartma.

Lee: Kartma. It was a good game for the portable kartma.

Shaun: I was considering going there, but I didn’t.

Chris: All told, I don’t think this is the best game of the group, but it’s awfully fun.

Mario Kart Wii

Chris: All these previous installments combined elements to form Mario Kart Wii, which came with a gimmicky steering wheel and was stuffed chock full of motorcycle fun.

Shaun: The wheel was fun for about five minutes, but is no way to really play the game.

Lee: I didn’t like this version as much as the others. The characters were great, but the levels didn’t have the same luster as the past. It really seemed like a way to showcase the motion controls, and that is one aspect of the Wii I can’t stand. Crappy game? Well, at least you can use the motion sensors. At best, this game was a rental.

Chris: That’s a fair point. There’s a great selection of characters here, but the stages feel…forced. Too much happening and not enough pure racing.

Shaun: Exactly. The stages (with the exception of the mall) seemed like recycled parts of previous entries.

Chris: And they really don’t hold up well when some of the best tracks from previous games are available as well.

Shaun: The motorcycle/car dynamic is something I wouldn’t mind seeing again, though — just implemented into a more solid game.

Chris: I definitely liked the motorcycle additions, but the stunts can go jump themselves.

Shaun: Yeah, the stunts were dumb. Super Mario Strikers syndrome — trying to make things more cool than they need to be. This is still Mario, people.

Lee: They didn’t think the controls through well enough. The item use button was set to B. That button is on the bottom of the controller, and was a real pain to hit without that wheel accessory.

Chris: And even when you could use items, you were guaranteed to get pelted by about 50 blue shells on the final lap of a 150 cc race. It’s one thing to ratchet up the difficulty with harder AI and more aggressive items toward the back of the field. It’s another thing entirely to manufacture that by making luck more important than skill.

Shaun: The AI item balancing was way off, more in this game than ever before.

Lee: And once again, you take the lead and your kart suddenly goes slower than the others. If you have a mushroom in first place, you might as well toss it into the trash, cuz it ain’t workin’.

Chris: The online play for this game was pretty solid, and nice to have on a console, but it wasn’t without its share of problems.

Lee: The lag during races was horrendous, even if you had a good connection.

Shaun: It’s sad that this game never piqued my interest long enough to even try out the online multiplayer.

Chris: Sure, it was nice to watch a race in progress while you waited for yours to load. But the whole “vote for what stage to race on” idea was abysmal. Everyone wanted to pick the shortest track possible so they could raise their score quicker. Apparently, spending an extra 30 seconds to do Maple Treeway instead of Moo Moo Meadows is just too much to ask.

Lee: At least the game made the choice random instead of the most popular stage.

Chris: True. Otherwise it would’ve been Mario Circuit every damn time.

Shaun: The developers made a lot of mistakes with this game.

Chris: I don’t think this was a bad game, but there’s a lot they could have done differently to really make it great.

The Future

Shaun: I’m looking forward to the next game with some high hopes that they correct some of the series’ earlier mistakes.

Chris: It’s about time MK figures out how to keep races competitive without skewing the item handouts.

Lee: And it you get a lead, it would be nice to keep it until you screw up. No more watching the other karts get a dose of spinach.

Shaun: The AI needs to be fine-tuned, and the races need to be less frills and more straightforward racing.

Chris: Maybe even get rid of the blue shell entirely. If you’re in 11th place, all that does is ruin the leader. Everybody else ahead of you feels nothing, except relief that it wasn’t them.

Shaun: Simplify the item list. The original variety is probably the best to this day.

Lee: What kind of new items would you like to see?

Chris: Well, the ink was a nice addition because it worked on everyone ahead of you, and the AI drivers were affected by it as well. So maybe something that works on a group of people. Like the Bobomb, but not terrible.

Lee: I think it would be nice if the mushroom doubled your size, which allowed you to crush people and move faster. But you would have to be careful where you used it.

Chris: True. The mega mushroom has precedence now with New Super Mario Bros., so that’s a possibility.

Shaun: Actually, I think the more precise you can make it, the better. It’s all of the new power-ups screwing everyone that sets off the balance. That, and the blue shells.

Chris: More than anything, we need two people on a kart, we need character selection like Mario Kart Wii had, and we need the same fun the series has mostly maintained since the original.

Lee: It would be fun if the player on the back of the kart could look backwards to shoot items. That might add a new level of difficulty to the game.

Shaun: Agreed, except I would like the option for both single and double karts. The addition was great, but I still enjoy the classic setup.

Chris: Fair enough. The more options the better. And please, no DK Jr.

Shaun: We need Mario Galaxy stages.

Lee: Yeah, the difference in gravity would make for a good stage.

Chris: I do like the last couple games’ blend of new tracks and old. Hopefully they can continue that in the next title.

Shaun: Taking the best tracks from the series would be nice to see. Even Mario Kart Wii has some notable ones that would be great to race on again.

Chris: Still, this is one of the best series in video games right now, so there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

Shaun: Exactly. Really, it’s about balancing simplicity with advances in technology, something that was done magnificently with Super Mario Galaxy.

Lee: Of the racing series that have come out over the years, this one ranks toward the top. Not only that, but they were able to make it a successful spin-off of another franchise. This series has the potential to be great once again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo made it so.

Checkpoint is a series of discussions run by Chris, Shaun and Tech Guy back in their college newspaper days. For more entries in the series, click here.