The Mario Kart series has always captivated the minds of young video game players, sucking them in to the virtual reality world of throwing shells and racing as their favorite Mario characters into one game.  As the release of the new Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 7, is looming for the Nintendo 3DS, I thought today would be an appropriate time to review this fascinating game on the Game Boy Advance platform.  The base of this game is, like many other Mario Kart games, to race on a series of courses called cups and get the golden trophy on all levels.  In this particular Mario Kart game, there are 5 cups spanning over 20 courses, which comes out to four races per cup.  Each cup has three difficulty levels, which are 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc.  Each difficulty level affects how fast you will go on the course.  There is also eight of your favorite Mario series characters to choose from, so if you want to be Peach, Yoshi, Mario, Bowser, Toad, Luigi, Donkey Kong, or Wario, you can choose to play as them.  There are three main game modes, which are Grand Prix, Quick Run, and Time Trial (Time Trial does not have you choose a difficulty).  Also, there is a possibility of getting the Extra Cups, which contain the SNES levels for your enjoyment.  To unlock these, you need to get a golden trophy on each cup on each difficulty and get 100 coins on each difficulty.  Coins are used in this game to act as fuel sort of.  For example, if you get hit by a kart and have no coins with you, your character will spin out and likely lose a place or two.

Graphics: 5  The graphics in this game are not very good, everything is extremely pixelated and grainy.  Even with that said, this game did come out in 2001, which made it a very early game for the system.

Sound: 6  The sound is not as grainy as the graphics, but the sound is still distorted a little.  The game's music is not very good, as all of the courses pretty much have the same music, which becomes very annoying.

Addictiveness: 10  This game is very addictive, as you can keep playing forever as there is a quick run mode and a time trial mode.  You can continue to try and get high scores until you can't get higher, which can captivate you for hours at a time.

Story: 4  The story is like most Mario Kart games, in which you just keep racing until you get all the gold cups.  As a result, there is not much of a story to offer.

Depth: 10  You can always continue to play, as there is a mode, Quick Run, which allows you to play as much as you want.  It also takes a while to get the Extra Cups, so it goes on for a long time.

Difficulty: 3  The game, aside from the Extra Cups, which are extra, is really very easy.  You can beat it very fast but have a fun time doing it. 

Overall: 8.8  The game itself is very good.  It has a few minor flaws in the sensory details, but besides that it is very good.