Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Mario Kart: Double Dash
"Niiiiiintendo, Woo-Hoo!"
Genre(s): Racing Platform(s): Nintendo GameCube Release Date: JP: November 7, 2003 EU: November 14, 2003 NA: November 17, 2003 AU: November 19, 2003 KOR: 2003 Developer(s): Nintendo EAD Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Mario Kart Predecessor: Mario Kart: Super Circuit Successor: Mario Kart DS

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is a racing video game released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube. It was developed and published by Nintendo and is the fourth main installment of the Mario Kart series.

Why It's A Double Dash

1. For the first (and only) time in the series, there are two characters per kart, with one driving the kart, while the other uses the items, and the player can also switch anytime by Z button.
2. Speaking of that, the game also introduced Special Items, which are items that are exclusive to a specific character or a group of characters, which includes, but not limited to:
   • Mario & Luigi — Red & Green Fireball;
   • Baby Mario & Luigi — Chain Chomp;
   • Toad & Toadette — Golden Mushroom;
   • Peach & Daisy — Heart;
   • Wario & Waluigi — Bob-omb;
   • Koopa Troopa & Paratroopa — Triple Green/Red Shells;
   • Yoshi & Birdo — Yoshi/Birdo's Egg;
   • Bowser & Bowser Jr. — Bowser's Shell.
3. Great graphics by GameCube standards, and this is also the first time in which both the character models and items are rendered in 3D, as opposed to pre-rendered sprites seen in Mario Kart 64.
4. There are a ton of fun courses to choose from.
5. 16 tracks (with final 4 unlocked by completing Star Cup with 100cc) are present in the game, their names are Luigi Circuit, Peach Beach, Baby Park, Dry Dry Desert, Mushroom Bridge, Mario Circuit, Daisy Cruiser, Waluigi Stadium, Sherbet Land, Mushroom City, Yoshi Circuit, DK Mountain, Wario Colosseum, Dino Dino Jungle, Bowser's Castle, and of course, the very well-known Rainbow Road.
   • Peach Beach is based off of Gelato Beach and other areas from Super Mario Sunshine.
   • Baby Park is a fun and chaotic course, which has 7 laps instead of 3 since the track itself is super short and simple, which makes for a really good time.
   • Dry Dry Desert is based off of the area of the same name from Paper Mario.
   • Wario Colosseum is based on the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, which is built during the Roman Empire.
   • Rainbow Road is obviously one of the best tracks in the game, with beautiful colors, sightings above a city, and for its very difficult nature.
6. A roster of over 20 characters, with Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Daisy, Birdo, Paratroopa, Diddy Kong, Bowser Jr., Waluigi, Petey Piranha, and King Boo being introduced as racers, as well as Toadette debuting for the first time both as a character and a racer in this game.
7. Decent controls and physics, thanks to the GameCube's excellent controller in which drifting actually goes together well with its triggers.
8. It also introduced the new point system for Grand Prix mode, in which it would later be adopted for future Mario Kart titles, unfortunately, you cannot retry a failed race as mentioned at BQ #3.
9. Great soundtrack, especially the Game Select theme, Circuit theme, Rainbow Road theme, and of course, the title theme.
10. Two new fun sub-modes were introduced for Battle Mode, such as:
    • Shine Thief, in which in this mode, you must retrieve the Shine Sprite dropped on the course and keep it until time runs out, and if Shineless, you can use items against players with the Shine Sprite to steal it from them.
    • Bob-omb Blast, in which in this mode, every character use Bob-ombs obtained from Item Boxes and attack each other with it in order to earn at least 3 points to win. When you hit someone using a Bob-omb, you earn a point, but when hit by someone else with a Bob-omb, you lose a point.
11. On Co-op mode, you can perform the Double Dash, a technique similar to the Rocket Start but more powerful, by having both players press the "A" button at the same time to launch their kart at a higher speed by the time the race starts.
12. The multiplayer mode of this game is both entertaining and great, due to its intensity and the ability to get up to 8 players by connecting 2 GameCubes using a 10BASE-T cable.

Bad Qualities

1. The voice clips and the voice acting itself can get repetitive and annoying, especially when the character falls out of the kart and slides (despite being hilarious) or when switching characters. This is best exemplified with the infamous "Hi, I'm Daisy!", as if Nintendo felt the need to hammer it into players' heads that her name is Daisy, just in case they never played Super Mario Land or the sports or party titles.
2. The infamous Fake Item Box returns in this game, and to make matters worse, it is colored red, making them easily distinguishable from real Item Boxes.
3. Because of the introduction of the point system, as mentioned at WIR #6, you cannot retry a failed race and you'll have to continue racing until you finish the cup to see the results.
4. Unlike other Mario Kart titles, you cannot hold items such as Shells or Bananas behind you to block incoming item attacks (such as Red Shells). In order to block a incoming attack, you must release the item behind you at the right time by the time a item (such as a Red Shell) gets near your kart.
5. While the Chain Chomp item is pretty useful and fast, it can sometimes go wild and can cause you to go off-track, and there's no invincibility with it. Plus, if you get hit by an item while it's in use, the Chain Chomp straight up abandons you.
6. King Boo and Petey Piranha can use every special item in the game (asides from Green Fireballs and Birdo's Egg).

Reception

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was met with critical acclaim upon release, with the game holding the score of 87 out of 100 on Metacritic. The game also sold around 7 million copies worldwide, making it the second best-selling GameCube game.

Trivia

• If you look very closely to the box art, oddly, the "L" on Luigi's cap is backwards.

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